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Why is SOPA such a big deal for Wichita marketing, advertising and small business?

Posted by Dave Mace at 9:09 am

Two words really sum up the shortcomings of the current SOPA and PIPA bills. And, a big “thank-you” needs to be shouted out to Senators Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran and Representative Mike Pompeo for doing everything they can to block them.

These words are: access and innovation.

To paraphrase Senator Moran, in a time when the Internet and the World Wide Web offer tremendous opportunities for innovation and a way to keep America competitive by leveling the playing field for Kansas and Wichita small business, it just doesn’t make any sense to make reduce access, sharing and transparency in the cyber-sphere.

The beauty and elegance of an immensely powerful tool like the Web is that the free flow of information raises the competitive waters for all business ships. Obviously, if you have true intellectual property, then you need to take steps to protect it. For the most part, those safeguards are in place. But if you ask most business owners, they will tell you that restricting this information flow is bad for everyone, especially consumers. This leads to higher prices, fewer choices and inefficiencies that stifle innovation.

All SOPA would do is create another government-led artificial environment rife with higher taxes, more unnecessary publicly-owned infrastructure and rewards for those willing to circumvent or cheat the system.

As we have seen time and time again, these types of onerous regulations are especially tough on small businesses who already struggle to be as efficient as their competitors who operate on a much larger scale. We don’t have the legal and financial resources to fight the court battles and add the staff that this legislation would require.

Perhaps one of the most alarming elements of these bills is that they would make changes to the fundamental DNS and TCP/IP interfaces. Ironically, many experts believe these changes will actually make our “cloud” more prone to attacks and less trackable. We shouldn’t be trying to fix what isn’t broken and has taken us 18 years to build.

I remember Bill Gates said, shortly after the “dot-com bubble” burst 10 years ago that the truly amazing and wonderful thing about that setback was that we would still benefit greatly from all the research, development and innovation that had occurred in the years immediately preceding the tech downturn. He was right. But that setback and ultimate recovery took place in a business environment mostly free from the shackles of regulation and taxation.

I have often said that Kentucky Fried Chicken and Coca-Cola could post their recipes on the Web for all to see and still win in the market because they do all the other things that make their brands great and win followers. That would be extreme, but we’re really not talking about anything different than putting two football teams on the same field with the same number of players who all have to play by the same rules. Imposing special sanctions, implementing onerous regulations or providing subsidies has never done anything more than distort free and efficient markets, harm consumers and stifle innovation.

Let small business compete.

Peerbackers.com provides opportunities for funding your Wichita business

Posted by Dave Mace at 7:58 pm

The new craze in business funding is microlending and crowdfunding. There are dozens of opportunities to obtain small loans or equity investments a few dollars at a time.

One such website is peerbackers.com. You can submit a project or a business idea and pitch your network and site visitors for up to $25,000 in total funding.

The site’s founders recommend you ask for $25 or $50 at a time and offer small rewards to your backers. A cap. A t-shirt. Free services.

The idea is that people like to help other people and feel like they’re part of something bigger than themselves. After all, what’s better than helping someone fulfill a lifelong dream?

Check out peerbackers.com an do a Google search for other crowdfunding resources.

Valé Releases Best and Worst of Marketing 2011

Posted by Dave Mace at 4:53 am

The past year was extraordinary for many reasons. Tough economic times. Natural disasters. And more talent contest shows than you can shake a stick at. Valé now presents our best and worst of 2011. Enjoy. And have a prosperous 2012.

Best

5. Prudential “First Day” Ad Campaign

Brilliant way to reach boomers.

4. Dillon’s Amps Up In-Store Experience

Sampling sells food.

3. Via Christi Lives Up To Its Promise

Branding means nothing without a fantastic experience.

2. Rob Dyrdek Keeps Getting Bigger

Multiple shows. Nothing but fun. And Big Black.

1. 5-Hour Energy Rolls On

The energy boost’s 15 minutes aren’t up yet.

Worst

5. D.C. delays tax reform and economic stimulus

What happened to the “fast track?”

4. Crowd-sourcing Gone Wild!

Sometimes, it pays to pay for what you need.

3. Tiger Fires His Caddy

Huh?

2. Subway Green Lantern–Avocado Tie-In

Green Lantern “green” M&Ms would have made more sense.

1. Domino’s “Artisan” Pizza

Worst. Food promo. Ever.

Make my new car with a little old and a little new so I can cruise Wichita in style

Posted by Dave Mace at 6:49 pm

I’m going to miss my old-fashioned, 2002 digital console when it’s gone. But that’s OK. It could be another 10 years. As long as my Honda keeps running and the pace of automotive innovation remains fairly slow. Where’s my freakin’ flying car, Detroit? Heck, the phone company (sort of) came through with the picture phone. Come to think of it, all I want from my car is 40 mpg highway, zero to 60 in five seconds or less and a great stereo. There’s just nothing like watching that needle climb from left to right.

It’s easy to criticize a seeming lack or slowness of innovation—particularly of the much-maligned auto industry. But if you believe in market dynamics, things are happening just as they should. Sure, there may be a few people with an axe to grind who are holding things up, but trying to hold back the market from giving consumers what they want is ultimately as fruitless as trying to keep Eastern Europeans from tearing down the wall. It is inevitable.

Maybe that makes cars—for the time-being, at least—a high-involvement commodity purchase. In the case of most features, we take what the manufacturers give us, in Druckeresque fashion. Or perhaps they are giving us exactly what we want. If that’s the case, then could it be that consumers, themselves, are hindering innovation in automobile manufacturing?

After all, Toyota and Nissan make huge trucks, and Chevy has small electrics and hybrids. What gives? If Honda starts making full-sized trucks I might jump off the bandwagon.

In any case, it would seem the auto industry is in an undisrupted equilibrium that the consumer electronics industry has not seen for decades. Maybe that’s why we get what we get when it comes to cars.

So, Honda, if you’re listening over there in Japan, all I want is fuel economy. And acceleration. And a great stereo. Oh, and give me an iPhone interface, but let me keep my analog speedometer.

Why go out to eat? What happened to advertising that makes people want to eat at home?

Posted by Dave Mace at 10:31 pm

One of my favorite things is cooking. But like many of us, I eat on the go and don’t take enough time to eat at home as often as I would like. That’s why I wonder why I don’t turn in the tv in Wichita and see more advertisements for food products and grocery stores that encourage consumers to cook at home.

When I was a kid about 30 cents of every food dollar was spent in restaurants. Today, it’s more like 50 cents of each food dollar.

I have to think that the absence of commercials extolling the virtues of home cooking is a contributing factor. Remember the Crisco, Wesson and Shake and Bake ads? Then it became mac and cheese. Before long, the tv portrayal of home-cooked food was frozen, microwaveable pizza rolls.

So it’s no surprise that grocery stores have lost ground to restaurants in the food marketing war. The food arena is probably the most dynamic advertising spectacle in the world. But supermarkets, fresh food makers and food preparation folks seem to have abdicated.

It would not seem to take a lot to create a lust among consumers to make cooking at home a regular pleasure again. Especially when so much foodservice advertising is so mundane and predictable. The cost of eating in restaurants relative to our current economic situation opens the door even wider for at-home food products and grocery stores to regain prominence.

In the meantime, I thought I would share a photo of my guilty pleasure: homemade fish and chips. Cheers!

p.s. Here is my five-minute black bean soup recipe. Enjoy the instructional video.

Who’s afraid of the big bad (recession) wolf? Not Wichita small business owners

Posted by Dave Mace at 7:15 pm

You know what you do when everybody says, “Don’t panic,” right? You panic. So, with everybody talking recovery one minute and doomsday the next, it’s hard to know what to think.

Fortunately for us, Wichita small business owners are resourceful, independent thinkers who don’t always accept the status quo or go along with the crowd. This innovative thinking extends beyond marketing and into how things are being made and distributed.

But if entrepreneurial thinking isn’t enough to convince you of why you should keep your chin up, then here are a few more.

1. Gasoline prices are at their lowest levels in months. If prices move another 25 or 50 cents lower it could contribute greatly to a prolonged economic recovery.

2. Retail spending is up leaps and bounds as Christmas has come early for many merchants.

3. Marketers and consumers seem to be reaching agreement on a new value proposition based on getting more (or better) for less.

4. There is a renewed effort on the part of government and other institutions to advance small business as much or more as big business.

5. Greater numbers of manufacturers are shifting their core strengths to new market foci in order to take advantage of opportunities outside dying or consolidating industries.

Indeed, there is much to give us hope. There is no nation like ours, particularly when it comes to small business. We are so much better, though, when we are fearless.

Hey. Did you happen to see the most beautiful girl a marketing hack could get?

Posted by Dave Mace at 4:13 pm

Today is Thanksgiving. I am thankful for my wife, Katie, because of who she is. But I am also thankful to her for putting up with me as I pursue my passion to provide marketing services for small businesses in Wichita and Kansas.

When you’re a workaholic your condition can be good for clients, but it makes things tough around the house at times.

But because of Katie’s relaxed approach and in spite of my stubbornness, we are among the happiest and more content families I know. Katie reminds me that I don’t have to chase happiness through my work or satisfying others. We have all we need right at home.

My wish for you today, Wichita small business marketers, is that you find happiness in what you do for a living and that you live happily at home and away, always remembering that it is the people at home who allow you to do what you love when you’re not there.

Thanks, Katie.

Goodyear marketing comes to Wichita but leaves the website behind

Posted by Dave Mace at 7:54 am

The new Goodyear “Tire Amnesia” marketing campaign is getting a little play around Wichita and in many cities across the country, thanks in no small part to a huge media buy and tie-ins with NASCAR and even NASA. Never mind the fact that most people are skeptical when a company tries to compare its work on the moon with how it can serve consumers. BTW, Goodyear, the 1960s are over, and the newness of Sputnik wore off a long time ago.

OK, readers, I’ll go ahead and give away the point of this article up front: When you have a multimedia marketing promotion strategy, it is important to tie the message threads in all those media together in a common bond. If you’re doing radio ads promoting your new guacamole burger, I should see it featured on the front page of your website and on your Facebook page. (Oops, Spangles, I couldn’t find it. Not even on the burgers page of your site. Unless I looked really hard at the menu.) Here’s what I’m talking about in terms of Goodyear. And it applies to Wichita small business marketing just as strongly.

The biggest problem with this new marketing push from an enduring American icon is that it simply neglects the website portion of the campaign. I couldn’t find evidence of the same content as the radio and television advertising anywhere on Goodyear’s website, meaning the continuity of message was completely lost.

The main idea of the advertising campaign is that many of us suffer from tire amnesia. For whatever reason, be it senility, apathy, or any other, we just can’t remember what kinds of tires we have on our car. Cute concept. You don’t remember. Get Goodyear tires and you’ll never forget because of our unforgettable performance and durability. Great. Got it.

But if you’re going to pull off a multi-million-dollar media blitz with NASCAR Films, sponsorships and more, then why wouldn’t you spend a few grand to make your website an appropriate carrier of the “cure for tire amnesia” message? Tell you what, Goodyear, I can fix that problem for $5,000. That’s about what I would charge a Wichita business owner for a similar website strategy and development.

Not to pour salt in a wound, but now that I think about it, I couldn’t even find any ads or ad materials when I did a Google search for “goodyear tire amnesia.” It’s called YouTube, Goodyear. Don’t make me go to your website to find your six-figure videos, and

Wichita and Philly are miles apart except when it comes to food marketing innovation

Posted by Dave Mace at 8:07 pm

It’s easy to misunderstand some promotions and products, Wichita small business marketers, even when a company like Arby’s makes it perfectly clear.

I love the new Arby’s commercial for its Ultimate Angus Philly sandwich for the same reasons that I abhor the Domino’s product/promotion strategy for its *ahem* “artisan” pizzas. (See previous post about learning from marketing mistakes.)

So when I was thinking about what to post this week, I decided to pay tribute to good marketing that borrows from an original without making outlandish claims. We’ve all seen attempts to dupe us into believing that the McRib is barbecue or that KC Masterpiece sauce on a sandwich makes it a masterpiece. We’ve even seen some of the treasured food marketing originals that came from Wichita–NuWay, White Castle, Pizza Hut and others–imitated in the worst ways possible.

But the beauty of the new Arby’s campaign (see video below) is that it is unabashedly unapologetic about the fact that it is NOT as good as the original Philly cheesesteak sandwiches popularized in the City of Brotherly Love. Instead, Arby’s takes its own unique turn by using angus beef with Arby’s flair to innovate the original.

The commercial has caused quite a stir, prompting Philly aficionados and bloggers to go on a marketing campaign of their own against Arby’s. But they missed the point.

And here it is: Innovation is about coming up with an original idea that might build on a previous original thought. And as long as people buy it, it adds value and creates wealth. The irony is that there is so much of an outcry for authenticity while we continue to love things that really aren’t.

I would argue that the Arby’s sandwich and commercials are original and innovative, and they maintain the authentic Arby’s flavor. It’s certainly a much better strategy than the “fresh market” sandwiches the chain introduced a few years ago. So, today, think about being inspired by wonderful things like the Philly and the iPhone, and don’t apologize for borrowing an idea and putting your own special flair on it.

Scott Brown’s “Thank God!” statement kindles feminist uproar for all the wrong reasons

Posted by Dave Mace at 10:36 pm

Recent political backbiting offers a keen insight into how a small business in Wichita can hone its marketing message to a razor sharp edge.

When Scott Brown indicated that the world was a better place with a fully-clothed Elizabeth Warren, he apparently upset feminists who saw the statement as insulting to the candidate’s physical appearance. But a better objection to his statement might have been that Elizabeth Warren has as much right as anyone to offer a quick retort when asked what she did to put herself through school:

“Well, I can tell you this, I kept my clothes on.” And while that answer elicited a snarky response from Scott Brown, it shouldn’t have created a storm of controversy about Warren’s ability to fill out a centerfold spread. It would make more sense to defend her right to be humorous, affable and just “one of the guys” when it comes to shaking off a derogatory statement from an opponent. A man probably would have created a lot of positive sound bites with such a remark.

If I were a feminist PR hack, I would be reminding people that Elizabeth Warren, in saying she never would have been caught dead naked, was poking fun at herself and is comfortable enough in her own skin to throw a disarming joke in the face of nastiness. Any other spin strategy leaves Warren open to being a Pelosiesque type of character in the political drama. Nobody likes a nasty person, but public opinion seems to be much tougher on women perceived to be, well, worthy of nasty names.

The lesson for the small business owner is to stay on message, which is the guiding light for every communication effort, especially in the face of controversy. In this case, the message for feminists is all about equal treatment, not victimization. In your case, it might be an emphasis on service, price or a specific value proposition. Don’t diverge from it, even when tempted by competitors.