The Limits of Great Marketing?

Back in 1996 the savvy folks American Savings Education Council (AESC) created Choosetosave.org in an attempt to educate consumers on the importance of raising personal savings and the problems with overextending credit.

They picked up a great domain name, built a website with lots of free tools, and even developed a whole super hero-themed story-line - "Savings Man" protecting consumers from the evils of "Credit Card Man" and "Sub-Prime-mate". Great idea, great execution, but it wasn't enough.

In the third quarter of 2005 America's savings rate actually went negative at minus .75%...

In a recent profile on PBS NewsHour, the founder was asked why, and he indicted that for every dime they spent on this program, far more powerful forces were arrayed against them, spending literally millions to convince Americans to take out another credit card, buy a bigger house, etc..

And so it goes: sometimes great marketing simply isn't enough. You need to know what competition you are up against, and either have the budget to combat it effectively or find a better way to get your message out. Personally, I think they could have done better with a hard core viral campaign - the videos are finally now on YouTube.

Of course, sometimes it's just a matter of timing. And SavingsMan's time may have just arrived: in Q4 2008 America's savings rate hit almost hit 3%.

- JPL

The Importance of Doing Things Differently

Heard a great story on NPR this morning that really demonstrates the success you can have when you change the way you are communicating.

An astronaut at NASA working on a project to help senior managers identify what inhibits "innovation" at the space agency decided that instead of doing the typical powerpoint preso he would present it as a video which can be seen here on YouTube.  He shot it on a borrowed  video camera and edited the piece right at home on his computer.

The story-line follows a young engineer as she tries to pitch a better way to design a spacecraft and all the bureaucracy she encounters along the way.  In the end, she takes a job with Google and they think the idea is so great they say they can probably "sell it to NASA"!!!!

The result of this piece?  A lot of embarrassment and raised eyebrows at the agency.  In the words of one senior NASA administrator: "This is really funny.  And not funny it all...."

Well, at least it got their attention.  Fair to say if this had been a powerpoint preso no one would have paid any attention to it.  Kind of like the engineer's idea...

JPL

 

Doghouse - Sheer Genius

Talk about innovative long-form advertising!  This probably cost JC Penny$250K to produce and they will get millions of dollars of free advertising and viral expose as a result.  Hollywood may be struggling, advertising may be down, the economy may be sinking, but as long as their is broadband and some damn good creativity out there, at least we'll have this kind of stuff to look forward to...    

Even better, they built whole interactive site around it too...

JPL