2HousePlague

...it's another thing to get it RIGHT.

There was a thread not so long ago someqone posted where the basic question was raised -- "To brand, or not to brand?" -- to which I responded -- "You're gonna build branding whether you're trying to or not."

An experience I had just a moment ago with a well-branded national company made me realize that it is not JUST a matter of being recognized -- let's call that "exposure", in the QUANTitative sense, or how MANY people know your name -- but it is also critical to manage and control WHAT those people think of when they think of your name -- in the QUALitative sense

In the online realm, the qualitative aspect of branding will determine whether your URL gets typed in or someone else's does -- think of it as a "keyword" list that resides in the heads of the people who know your brand. In this sense (and numerous others, actually), the human brain operates exactly like a search engine -- there are pre-existing associations and "rankings", which come into play when we exercise deliberate recall.

For example, my experience of a few minutes ago -- I was interested in shopping for and pricing a desktop computer. For whatever precise reasons, Fry's came into my head. I have not yet thought about the exact mehanics of its high-ranking in my cerebral query, but -- the basic elements of the "match" are obvious -- they sell desktop computers + I have physical-store experience with Fry's in the Bay Area.

So, I type in www.frys.com -- though I recognized the logo and the colors -- as you can see -- this is NOT a page that seems to be expecting a desktop computer shopper. I persisted inward, of course, and finally made my way to the retailer's actual online store -- which has a totally different domain name. But, I think I am probably an exception -- and that most other online shoppers would not have gone so far.

Frys.com -- it turns out -- is geared to the company's ISP business -- a business I, a retail customer, didn't even know existed. Now, unless Fry's is raking it in in the ISP business, I would say this is a mistake, and a failure to properly manage the QUALitative aspects of their brand. They succeeded in getting their name into my head -- getting "indexed", in other words -- but the term / brand association failed to hook the prospective customer that was nibbling on their line -- or at least failed him in the online realm. Had I been walking on Van Ness Avenue when the impulse struck, the results might have been very different.

Most of us here are, thankfully, not managing our customer acquisition branding across multiple mediums -- like Fry's and the auto makers, for example -- but, the illustration has value for us, nevertheless.

I know that I am not alone in my ambitions towards the mainstream -- I read all the press releases and see the deals that are being made by the savvy in this community. Among the more interesting types of deals, are those that seize upon alternative channels for either customer acquisition or product delivery...

One need only count the number of threads and posts with "2257" or ".XXX" in them to know that we are operating in a commercial and political context that is inimical to our industry. Our existing "channels" are now patrolled by Police Men. We can assume that there will also be Police Men -- very soon, if not already -- standing guard wherever else in the global Communications Macrocosm we try to sell our wares.

I would so hate to see any of us miss an important opportunity because they had failed to consider the FULL complexity of shifting from one medium to the next.

From this point forward, and in ALL that we do, we must assume that Big Brother is a party to the dialogue between our customers and ourselves. I think too many of us imagine a greater privacy than actually exists -- simply because our customers are usually sitting alone in dark rooms when they press "BUY".

For a long time -- since forever, actually -- we have relied on the fact that "sex sells" -- we've had a free ride, so to speak -- insofar as all our marketing has simply been about achieving as much exposure (QUANTITATIVE) as possible.

But, the times -- they are a-changing, my friends -- and it's not necessarily all bad, or even bad at ALL -- if -- IF we learn quickly enough the fine art of saying one thing, while meaning another.

In successful warfare, there is a time to stand straight-up and resist -- but there is also a time for patience and camouflage --









j-

__________________
tada!

SteveLightspeed

You wouldn't believe the typein traffic to Lightspeedgirls.com

__________________
Abra-cadabra!

RedShoe

My brand is Chuck T's.


And this is me.. when I was thinner.

__________________

AdPatron

I would love to get all the "uncensored" traffic on SEs.

baddog

I guess the thing that surprises me the most is that the first place you thought of for a laptop was Fry's.

Must be the closest store to you selling electronic goods or something.

baddog

Now, after following the link I have to wonder when they decided to get into the dial up market.

Hope it wasn't a recent decision.

baddog

The third thing that comes to mind is, when did they become outpost.com? I wonder how many people think Outpost when thinking of Fry's?

RedShoe

What I like most about Fry's.. and I've seen this with my own two eyes... is that when you return something it goes from your hands to people in a little room, and from there it gets a sticker, and then gets sent right back out on the shelf for resale.

At the Fry's in Burbank, The return counter is to the right of the entrance. You can go around the returns counter to the right, and see the little room I'm talking about. It has no back wall... just a chain link fence. After they get enough shit piled up they just take it right back out to the shelves.

Fry's is a piece of shit store. It's only good for CD's and DVD's. That's it.

__________________

baddog

I like going there to listen to the bullshit their sales people spew. Then when they leave I will tell the potential fish the truth so they can form an educated opinion.

They are worse than used car salesmen.

RedShoe

I do the same thing on here when Juicy leaves.

__________________

baddog

2HousePlague

redshoe -- i admire your use of branding very much. i see a clear understanding of the medium you're in -- i see a clear understanding of the language spoken by your customers -- i see that you have chosen your "adjectives" very wisely -- well done --

it blows my mind when i think about how frail the chain of links really is -- each step (each click) brings the customer one step closer -- but, each transition (whether from site to site or medium to medium) is also a FAILURE OPPORTUNITY.

to better understand the special vulnerabilities and unique opportunities of 21st century "HyperLinked Marketing", it pays to reminisce a bit about the ways in which merchants in the pre-Internet world acquired their customers -- remember -- ?

for most companies operating 15 years ago, marketing was a vast cost center of vast and nebulous effect. obviously, that has changed -- but what has also changed, in just 15 years, is nothing less than the very essence of Marketing -- once upon a time, the "science" of Marketing, from its lowest copywriters to its most elite "thinkers", was entirely PREDICTIVE in nature -- meaning, simply, that, to market successfully, was to predict correctly.

in pre-internet marketing, all the research and the analytics, and all the theories that derived from them -- however fanciful and acronym-soaked -- stood vulnerable to one, very simple, very inescapable, seldom-articulated challenge -- "prove it -- !" -- and, short of paying someone to sit with Joe Consumer in his living room while your 15-second spot came on the air, and then to hang out with him long enough (maybe spend the night, maybe much, much, much longer) in order to observe any subsequent behavior relating to the advertised product -- short of THAT, marketing was never more than GUESSWORK. they could never, with anything less than extraordinary difficulty and expense, PROVE a direct correlation between a unique* "ad" and a sale.

*(unique -- as in THIS ad, appearing THERE, at THAT time.)

it sounds absurd to describe it that way now, in light of our recent "online enlightenment" -- but it was THIS that was always LACKING in marketing -- the fundamental verification of effect -- you could never REALLY KNOW why the customer came THAT day -- nor ever REALLY CONNECT that customer to a SPECIFIC marketing activity.

even as a kid, i understood this was why the ads always IMPLORED me -- "...mention so and so when you come to the store..." -- and i assert that printed coupons were the first "cookies" ever conceived -- think about it -- the customer would tell the merchant all the things the customer had done to get to the store (the merchant could know all this from the unique distribution characteristics of the coupon), and then the merchant could MARRY all that sales channel data to the particulars of the purchase at the POS -- brilliant, and an early incidence of using the customer as the transfer vehicle for marketing meta-data.

for online marketers today -- verification of effect is the very FIRST thing we get -- before we know anything else, we know which ad and what was sold -- that's quite a LOT for a mareketer to know, isn't it -- ?()?

and nowhere has more money been made with that knowledge than right here in Adult --

(but when I say "money", I mean CONSUMER PURCHASE REVENUE, and not <what are, essentially just> "CONSULTANCY FEES" paid by web-ignorant marketers to purported "experts of online marketing" in exchange for "customer acquisition services" -- I'm talking about -- "I made a guy buy this shit" money)

-- but what concerns me is the fact that our success (for having conquered the "prove it" challenge) is distracting us from a much bigger picture than that contained between a customer's mouse and our payment processor -- for all these billions we're making, there's STILL a whole lotta OFFLINE world -- with a whole LOTTA influence over our success -- and I AM NOT talking about legislative or regulatory events, which, if anything, DE-FOCUS us further from BIZ-AS-USUAL -- i'm talking about the basics -- PR -- branding, and the level of political sophistication required by ANY large industry, much less one with so many inherent political challenges.

I have to be honest with you, the more I see us rankle and cuss like a bunch of insecure, reactionary EXTREMISTS -- the more worried I get.

like i said above,
The Hey-Dey of Pimp Lore and gangsta-fly is no doubt still a fervid nostalgia for many of you -- it musta been a blast -- I've seen the pictures -- -- but -- my colleagues and dear friends -- as I observe the landscape and notice the direction of the wind -- I'm afraid it looks like the Adult Biz has a bit of an image problem on its hands -- and worse than that, I see very few of us doing ANYTHING about it.

It's not the clothes, it's not the partying -- smart businessmen in other industries understand and appreciate that is a part of our marketing -- it's the impression among those influential personages, within both commerce and government, that we're just not SHREWD and SUBTLE enough to assist in a re-architecture of our industry that will address a few political necessities, but that will also -- and this is the important part -- preserve a very nice livelihood for ALL involved --

I'm quoted on .XXX

j-

__________________
tada!

Steelhead

nice read.

3 entries found for inimical.
in·im·i·cal ( P ) Pronunciation Key (-nm-kl)
adj.
Injurious or harmful in effect; adverse: habits inimical to good health.
Unfriendly; hostile: a cold, inimical voice.

__________________
VENDO - The AI Biller

2HousePlague

thanks very much --


j-

__________________
tada!

FilthyRob

I agree with you there, they suck mostly

__________________
AKA - Clubsexy

Chio The Pirate

YARGH! Another 2house post worthy of much discussion. Excellent read as always.

__________________

axelcat

I believe it