Dennis Norman Musings

I attended a presentation on mobile technology for real estate today, part of which focused on social media and how to use it to market your business.  There was a fair amount of discussion about Facebook, Twitter, Twellow, Linkdn as well as some others.  The best part though was the speaker played a video that I had seen before but had forgotten about that does a great job of presenting the facts and figures on social media….clearly it works and it is here to stay.  While searching YouTube I actually found a new version of the video from last month that has updated statistics….

Here it is:

Wikipedia defines “Guerrilla Marketing” as:

…an unconventional system of promotions that relies on time, energy and imagination rather than a big marketing budget. Typically, guerrilla marketing campaigns are unexpected and unconventional; potentially interactive; and consumers are targeted in unexpected places. The objective of guerrilla marketing is to create a unique, engaging and thought-provoking concept to generate buzz, and consequently turn viral.

Wikipedia defines “Terrorism” as:

…in the most general sense, the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion.

See the difference? Guerrilla marketing is a “system of promotions” and is commonly quite clever and creative in it’s approach, intended to be “engaging and thought-provoking“.  Terrorism, on the other hand, is not normally an approach to marketing, at least not in the U.S.  Well, until Marc M. Keyser had a brainstorm on how to promote his new book on, of all things, terrorism.

Read on it gets even better…

So, according to a press release issued by the FBI in Sacramento, in January 2007 Keyser mailed a package to the Sacramento News & Review, promoting a book that he had written about potential anthrax attacks in the United States by terrorists. The package included a copy of the book on CD, a note offering to discuss publication of excerpts of the book, and a cylindrical aerosol canister labeled “Anthrax.” The mailing resulted in the evacuation of the building and a full law enforcement and hazmat response. An investigating FBI special agent interviewed Keyser at that time, informed him of the consequences of the mailing, and specifically admonished him that he risked prosecution under the hoax mailings statute if he sent any similar mailings in the future.

OK, so it seemed like a good idea maybe at first….but the FBI warned him not to do it again so of course he didn’t…right?  Wrong!

I have to admit I have had some ideas that sure seemed good when I played them out in my head for a couple of seconds before putting them in action, only to have it blow up in my face or backfire.  However, in my case, I generally wake up and smell the coffee…I realize my idea wasn’t so good and abandon it as quickly as I initially embraced it.  Oh, and if my wake up call was the FBI telling me my idea was not good, after I peed in my pants from fear, I would then permanently erase the idea from my head. Not this guy though…..he not only does it again, he does it 100-fold!

In late October 2008 Keyser mailed over 100 packages that contained a CD with excerpts of a new book on terrorism that was labeled in large print “Anthrax Shock and Awe Terror” and a small sugar packet that had been re-labeled with a bio-hazard symbol and the words “Anthrax sample.” Most of the packages had no information indicating that the CD contained a book. The mailings were sent to various newspapers and other media companies, officials, and retail outlets nationwide, causing police, fire, and hazmat teams to respond to emergency calls in many states.

So what’s Keyser say about his plan?

Again, according to the information from the FBI, Keyser stated to investigating agents that he intended the mailings to be “provocative” and that he hoped the controversy and “buzz” generated by news reports about the mailings would heighten awareness of anthrax vulnerability and spur sales of his book.

So how did it work out?

Well, I’m not sure how Keyser’s book sales are going, but I would say his marketing plan was a bust…well actually he was busted,  convicted by a jury on September 17, 2009 of three counts of committing an anthrax hoax and two counts of mailing threatening communications, and on Monday of this week was sentenced to 51 months in prison.

Apparently outdoor-apparel manufacturer The North Face doesn’t think so.   I say this because of a recent lawsuit that was filed by North Face against South Butt, a company manufacturing outdoor clothing as a parody of North Face. 

The suit alleges that the South Butt brand is causing confusion amongst consumers with the North Face brand.  While the slogans are somewhat similar they invoke different messages I think: North Face, “Never Stop Exploring^TM“. South Butt, “Never Stop Relaxing^TM”

South Butt was started by 19-year-old University of Missouri student Jimmy Winkelmann in 2007 and I think was a relatively “unknown” company with it’s products only distributed in a couple of St. Louis area drug stores and available on their website at TheSouthButt.com.  That is, until The North Face started trying to curtail their business first with a cease and desist letter back in October, then a couple of months later a lawsuit.  

Thanks to the actions of The North Face, The South Butt suddenly began getting a ton of media attention (ah the power of GOING VIRAL!) which I would assume has brought them significant sales as well as support.  One of the supporters of The South Butt is St. Louis attorney Albert Watkins who has agreed to represent the company in exchange for a “nice bottle of wine”.   Included in the coverage (translation “Free Advertising”) was this video below on Fox News:

Fox News Coverage

OK, now for the good part.  I would think most people have not read an answer to a lawsuit file with a court, or certainly have not done it for entertainment, but you have to read the answer to The North Face lawsuit filed by Albert Watkins on behalf of the defendants, it’s quite unusual and comical.  You can read the entire answering by clicking on the link below but here are a few highlights:

“The South Butt” — evoking the opposite of Plaintiff’s historia nomen–being the soft undercarriage of the non-mountain climbing human anatomy, commonly known and referred to in non-salacious form as, among others, rump, bootie, bottom, buttocks, posterior, rear, saddle thumper and butt.”

“Rather, North Face has voluntarily and as a matter of public record, elected to depict the commercial undertakings of South Butt and its co-Defendants as “piracy”, evoking not intellectual property issues, but high crimes on the high seas, perhaps the South Seas, as contrasted with its oft explored polar opposite.”

There’s much more, it’s worth a read. South Butt Answer to Lawsuit

By: Dennis Norman

Wikipedia defines “Guerrilla Marketing” as:

The concept of guerrilla marketing was invented as an unconventional system of promotions that relies on time, energy and imagination rather than a big marketing budget. Typically, guerrilla marketing campaigns are unexpected and unconventional; potentially interactive; and consumers are targeted in unexpected places.The objective of guerrilla marketing is to create a unique, engaging and thought-provoking concept to generate buzz, and consequently turn viral 

Being a life-long entrepreneur and, often the “underdog” in the race, I have had to rely on guerrilla marketing tactics to promote myself and my businesses.  So, “having been there, done that”, I’m always impressed when I see good guerrilla marketing in action. 

Over the weekend I ran across a blog that highlighted, not only a great example of a business that acted upon a situation that was literally the textbook (well, wikipedia) example of a guerrilla marketing opportunity, but the story also contained a great example of another business that blew it and couldn’t have wasted the opportunity more.
I’m referring to a blog called DoctorWifeMom and the post was titled “A Tale of Two Managers”.  This was my first time to the site and while it appears to be a political blog of sorts.  In the header is the following statement;

“Blogging about life as a woman who wears many hats and lives in the red flyover states where we cling to our bibles and our guns and rely on hard work and ingenuity to make it”

However it was at this site I found a great example of guerrilla marketing.

Carolyn, the blogs author, wrote about a political rally she attended in St. Louis, Missouri which brought out a couple of thousand people.  the rally was held on, what sounds like, a busy corner with a shopping center across the street from the rally.  Being the best source of parking it appears many of the rally attendees chose to parking on the shopping center lot although the lot no doubt had signs posted that parking was for patrons of the shopping centers stores only.  Clearly some of the attendees, including Carolyn, did make a purchase from a business  in the center, but many did not. 

In the story there were managers of two businesses located in the shopping center that looked out onto the parking lot, saw all the “illegal parkers” as well as the crowd of people out front and took action.  One person responding was a manager of a major local grocery chain that does over $2 billion of sales in the St. Louis area a year (no doubt many of the rally attendees are customers) and his response was apparently not nice and was more combative than friendly.  The other response was from a manager of another business in the center; one Kyle Gilbertson, manager of Mr. Goodcents Subs and Pastas who took a different approach; he was friendly and nice to the 2,000 unexpected “guests” out front and had employees hand out coupons, food samples and so forth.  No doubt his sales that day were way above normal.  You gotta love it.  Carolyn’s story is much more detailed and complete and I would invite you to check it out by clicking here.

By: Dennis Norman

The methods by which you market your business or profession has certainly changed.  Old, “traditional”, media is not working like it once did.

So whats happening??  Has everyone stopped watching commercials and reading the voluminous junk mail we receive? 

The answer is yes, and sometimes, no….   So what in the world am I talking about?  Let me explain: Up until a couple of years ago “interuption Read more…