Michael Jordan vs. Bryon Russell - Stories People Want to Believe

Michael Jordan vs. Bryon Russell 1998 NBA Finals

Ok, so for those of you who hadn't heard. There was a huge PR stunt pulled in Utah this week by the owner of the Utah Flash. They're the local NBA D-League affiliate of the Utah Jazz and Boston Celtics. It got alot of media attention and created alot of buzz, mostly negative with fans and people throughout the state.

This story goes back over 10 years ago, 1998 NBA Finals Michael Jordan hit a game winning shot over Bryon Russell to win the series and championship. In his Hall of Fame induction speech MJ made a remark about that game winning shot and Bryon Russell. That sent Bryon Russell off and he went on ESPN and challenged MJ to a little one-on-one basketball anytime any place.

Brandt Anderson and The Utah Flash

Brandt Anderson, the local owner of the Utah Flash saw a great opportunity to host that challenge at his season opener on Monday, December 7th in Orem, Utah. I had heard about it, but there wasn't a ton of buzz about it in the area until that day. One of my good friends called me up and asked if I'd heard about it. We decided it would be too good to pass up, so we picked up some tickets online and headed down to the game. I knew all along that it was simply a challenge, and that it might be a long shot for him to actually show up at a D-League event in Utah. I knew that I'd at least get $20 worth of entertainment by watching the game. That's all I expected, but thought it might be interesting if something did happen down there. In the end, it was a classic train wreck and I'm glad I got to watch the entire thing playout, because it was a great lesson on marketing and PR and how you can ride the fine line between truth and fiction.

I got a great line from my business partner who compared this stunt to when Michael Scott ("The Office") auctioned off front row tickets to Bruce Springsteen (he had no tickets). Earlier in the day, the Flash or someone associated with the Flash had put a look alike out in the community. They posted video on youtube and started to circulate it around town. Obvously that was to try to help create more buzz and get some last minute ticket sales. When halftime came, as I suspected Bryon Russell was there and came out with the challenge, but there was no Michael. They actually brought out an imposter to play it up. There are alot of people that went to the event who are angry. There are also alot of people that didn't go to the event that are calling people fools. It's all relative and unnecessary. The ticket I purchased was $20 for a half court lower bowl seat and said specifically "Utah Flash Vs. Dakota", not Michael vs. BRuss. In my mind, that's a pretty good value, I got to witness a train wreck and the Flash won at the end, which made it even better.

As a marketer, I was honestly impressed with the buzz that one guy and his marketing group were able to generate. However, the way in which it was pulled off with imposters and all the hype left a bad taste in alot of peoples mouths. If you look back at everything Brandt Anderson ever said about the event, it was clear that "Michael may not show up, but we're just not sure". Checkout this quote from Anderson on ESPN: "We've had some conversations, and I think there's a good possibility that he's going to be here. He'll say no he's not. If you ask him straight on he'll say no he won't. If you ask his people they'll say no he won't. You know what, I've probably said too much. But I think there's a good chance he might be here. Let's leave it at that."

It's pretty clear from reading that quote that he probably won't be there, but you never know... He's just leaving the door open and planting a seed of hope.

Was the line crossed?

There's a famous line in marketing and copy writing that I've often heard. You don't want to let the truth get in the way of a good story. The most successful marketers tell stories that people want to believe. There is a fine line though between telling a good story and deception. Where's the line? I think it was when they sent the fake MJ out around town, shoot video and post it to Youtube and attempt to pass it off as a legit Michael Jordan sighting.

In the end, I got to watch a great game of basketball and got a pretty good lesson on how a marketing campaign can go from exciting to a company to frustrating for it's consumers. I think some blame rests on both parties. If you bought a ticket to only see Michael Jordan, that's your fault. The company never published a press release, website ad or anything that would state that he would definitely be there. It was the story everyone wanted to believe. I'm not saying it's morally or ethically just, but the promotion did what it was intended to do, have some fun and sell some tickets.

Reprecussions

As soon as Bruss announced that it wasn't really Jordan, the damage control began. (Watch the video here) The crowed was pretty dazed, most people were booing and people were throwing back their free tshirts. Immediately the Flash started throwing out free swag and t-shirts. They also announced within minutes that the ticket would be valid for another game. Within hours Brandt Anderson posted a formal apology on his blog and explained his position. In the past day under pressure and hopes to salvage their reputation Brandt Anderson announced that all ticket holders could get a full refund on their tickets. Since the moment it happened, he's gotten ripped up and down on Twitter, checkout twitter comments here.

As an attendee to the game, I can honestly say I'm not upset or feel betrayed or cheated. It was very interesting to me from a marketing promotion standpoint, and even more interesting to watch the communities reaction and bad press and twitter posts. They wanted a reaction from Social Media, I'm just not sure this is the reaction they had hoped or planned on. It's been something to talk about in small town Utah that's for sure.

News Site Spammers: Vibrant Ads

I'm going to take this opportunity to go on an advertising rant. Have you ever been reading a news site, such as Fox News and as you scroll down the page... 10 pop-ups appear and block your view of the content. It's absolutely the most intrusive form of online advertising I've seen. In my mind, this is horrible positioning for this advertiser, as well as all those who place ad's with this type of media. What's hilarious to me is the fact that they proudly display their logo "Vibrant Ad's" in the pop-up that's now blocking my view. In my mind, this is poor brand management at it's finest for Vibrant. This morning, I was so ticked that I sent them an email telling them "Congratulations, you're the most annoying advertisers on the web". Hahah

If you're interested, there is a simple way to block this type of content, specifically from this publisher using Internet Explorer, I couldn't find the steps in Firefox, but i'm sure it's possible. It is very simple, and you can avoid the constant frustration and bombardment you'll see from these type of Vibrant Ads.

Block Vibrant Ads from sites you visit

1. Simply open IE
2. Click on tools
3. Select internet options
4. Click the security tab
5. Highlight restricted sites.
6. Click on the sites button below it
7. Add this site to the zone: enter this just as it look's *.us.intellitxt.com
8. Then restart internet explorer

This will work as long as their publishing the ads from that domain. I'll continue to monitor it, and update the domain as necessary.

Revenue Models: Performance Based vs. Cash Upfront

In today's economy, you want low barriers to entry. I've worked on setting up models which are all performance based. This is a great way to drive in new business, but can also create cash-flow problems later when it comes time to collect payment. The credit markets are tight, people are cautious and business owners usually have some of the worst track records with paying on time. Just ask the people at Amex, they're usually the first ones to be moved to the bottom of the pile when it's time to pay bills. Without any track-record with a new client, how can you ensure you'll get paid net 15 / net 30? I actually knew a business owner who once told me that he wanted to put all vendors on a Net 90. That's hilarious considering that his company collected payment from their customers weekly. "We get paid weekly; we'll pay you 4 times per year". That sounds like a recipe for success.

The salesman in me wants to just sign the contract and get rolling, but you sometimes can't take any chances. If you're risk adverse and want to hedge your bets, it's a great idea to collect an installment up front. In the marketing world, as with any industry, we have costs of doing business as soon as the relationship starts including; campaign development, strategy, creative's, programming.

Once the relationship starts you'll begin to incur costs whether you collect upfront or performance based. The meter starts ticking and cash is being spent. If your client isn't financially committed you might have the contract and work, but when it's time to push the button they may have a "change of direction". There's nothing like working on a project, then later finding out your client isn't fully invested and you won't collect your return.

I've seen this countless times over the years and it's always avoidable. Although I hate to cut checks for pre-pay items, I can't argue with the logic. In my experience, as soon as that check is cut, I want to know when the work will be completed and how quickly I can get my ROI. In contrast, with no commitment, they may find that I'm hard to get ahold of later for some reason. It's not on purpose, it's just how that seems to work. Nothing gets your attention like a line item on your budget.

Suggestions on collecting upfront pre-pays and still closing the deal

• Provide clear direction on what the deliverables will be once work begins, detail it out in a scope document if necessary. People are visual, they'll want to see what their getting.


• Detail your initial costs on commencement of the agreement (design, programming, staffing, etc.)


• Explain why you collect fees upfront, it engages clients and ensures they're committed. This might not work all the time, but it makes sense and it's logical.


• Use friendly lingo: Words like pre-loaded expenses, will work much better than "Deposit, Down-Payment, or Installment fee".


• If necessary, use a retainer: If push comes to shove, you might want to consider withholding a portion on a retainer. It allows you to sign the deal, secure some funds and confidently begin work. You can call it "sharing the risk".

In today's economy, cash flow is tight for many industries. In order to be successful, new business is critical, but getting paid should rank higher. In a presentation at Launchup last week, I heard a great quote from Ben Peterson. "In business, Cash flow is more important than your mother". Although we all love our Mom's, it's hard to disagree with that quote.

What do you think? Is it possible to have a 100% performance based model, without avoiding certain deals that have unpredictable results? I'd like to know your thoughts...

Twitter: Does it have any legs?

Unless you've been living under a rock, you're likely familiar with Twitter. It's the big buzz in SM right now. I've been using it regularly for about a few months and have found some interesting uses for it. However, unless your a die-hard tweeter, or marketer it's hard to see a lot of the value in the service. It's basically a public-facing, searchable, text message repository. In my opinion, if it's going to have any legs, they're going to have to make some updates to the interface. There are already a ton of app's that have sprung up offering the features that Twitter should be offering themselves already.

As far as I can tell, there is no clear revenue model with the service as of yet, but apparently it's in development. They're not making a dime yet, but I'm sure their rev model will involve advertising. Theres no way subscribers would pay for the service, not the critical mass anyway.

It's ironic however that there are a ton of users already advertising their products and content through tweets all day... It's possible that the folks at Twitter have been watching how the users are interfacing with the system, to decide how to best monetize all that traffic. It's an insane amount of traffic, and at present it seems that's all they have. It's enough traffic however to get Google's attention. Theres a rumor released this week that they've offered Twitter $250 Million for their platform (read the techcrunch article here).

As I was researching their revenue model, I found an interesting article discussing this issue. Silicon Alley recently completed a contest titled "Create a Twitter Revenue Model" to help generate ideas for the service. It's a cool idea, I'm sure there were some intersting submissions.

There are already a ton of people jumping on the bandwagon, building services and tools around the platform. Last week I attended a local entrepreneur "Barn Raising" in Utah called Launchup. One startup presented their idea called TweetBooty, multiple online twitter accounts, which you can follow, that publish coupons from local businesses. I was having a hard time seeing the value of building an online coupon distribution system on the coattails of Twitter, but they even had VC money behind them...very surprising. They plan to make 5 cents per published ad. That's alot of nickels boys and girls... With advertising appearing to be ultimately controlled by Twitter, I wonder how that will factor into their business model.

If I were Twitter, I'd take the $250,000,000 and run. They've done all the work to create the market for the platform, get people behind it. It's time to let the folks at Google work their advertising magic and get out of dodge.

What are your thoughts? Do you see the system evolving more, filling the needs such as applications such as Tweetdeck, Twitseek and others? What ways do you see the company monetizing all that traffic?

Direct Mail: Is it dead, or under-utilized?

It's been too long since my last post... In the past few months, I've been seeing an increased interest in Direct Mail, so I thought I'd post some thoughts and get feedback from everyone out there.

There's no question, that direct mail isn't considered one of the cheapest marketing channels lately, especially with the volume and production you can get out of email. However, there's alot to be said of mixing your marketing mediums and attracting a different type of customer. When digging through my bills and other junkmail (i'll classify bills as junk mail), I always appreciate a nice, high-quality, personalized mail piece in my mailbox. It's old school, but get's my attention sometimes more than an email with blocked images and no visible text (yes marketers still do that, I know some of the worst offenders out there).

I've had the opportunity recently to visit with a new friend of mine Kent Merrill with Merrill-Remington Direct Marketing. Kent has a tremendous amount of Direct Marketing experience, and has been a direct mail powerhouse since the 80's. I had to ask Kent how direct mail has changed over the past ten years, and he said that "he's seeing constant, steady production, really not much has changed in that regard". After talking with him further, and seeing some of his work, it's not surprising why he's had such great success. Kent's a very creative thinker and can leverage his experience to produce great results with any direct mail campaign.

In the past, I had overlooked the power of geographic and demographic targeting with my mailings. When you implement appended data such as geo and demographic data, you can produce the same volume of responders without all the waste in mailing those who aren't likely to respond anyway. I've put together an awesome proposal for a large group, which will leverage real-time delivery using variable data mailers as an upsell for a lead partner. In addition, I'm also looking for new ways to leverage this channel further within the financial, insurance and consumer product verticals.

One of my favorite Direct Mail stories involves American Express. Yes, I'm a card holder, I have two; blue and gold. I've actually signed up with both cards through their direct mail offers, so I guess you could say that I'm one of their DM success stories. However, the success stops there. Amex: When are they going to flippin' figure out that I have both of those cards? Note to American Express: Please cross-check your database when mailing me offers to sign up for the two cards I ALREADY CARRY. It's a huge waste of your money! Instead, you could be offering me other products and services. I think everyone out there can relate to that story, it seems to be fairly common. It's so important to know your customer and ensure you're sending them the appropriate offers. It would be hard for me to believe that Amex doesn't have my products flagged in their marketing database. It can get very annoying, especially for consumers more observant than the average bear, like myself :)

Please share any experiences you've had in the past few years with Direct Mail campaigns, or other effective ways you've used this channel to generate new leads and convert prospects...

Inspiring words...

This is a great quote that my good friend Bryce told me about last year, he even engraved it on a plaque and gave it to me to hang on my wall. I've been staring at it for the past twelve months and it's always refreshing.

"If you don't take action to accomplish your goals, you will be used to accomplish someone else's."

If you're the type of person that's "bigger than your fishbowl", you might find these words inspiring. I believe that there can be great honor in helping others acheive their goals, especially when you're recognized and rewarded for your hard work. However, if it's keeping you from achieving your personal, professional or family goals and it's not fulfilling, then you truly can't be happy. This week I finally felt the meaning of this quote that's been hanging on my wall for the past year. Here's to dreams, goals and the opportunities we all face.

Thanks Bryce!

Twitter Marketing

I've been out of touch for the past week, preparing for LeadsCon and getting back and caught up with everything. In the past month, I've been using twitter for personal communication, and it has it's pros and cons. I was reluctant to use it, since it seems like a gimmick. I can tell you this, there are a crap load of spammers on there already, hitting everyone up with all sorts of crap. It kinda reminds me of some friends of mine. Anyway... I've used my personal twitter account to communicate with friends, post to my facebook, grow my network and promote my blog. Overall, It's been a useful tool and somewhat addicting...

In the process of preparing for the event, I had a late night epiphany, one of those ones that hits you at 2am when your sleeping. You have to get out of bed and move on it right away, cuz it's so cool. I realized that I needed to setup a Twit account for my biznass, so I quickly set it up and customized the design to fit our branding. Then, I searched out everyone tweeting about the conference using http://search.twitter.com It allows you to find people talking about the event, the same people that are going to the event... I quickly added 200 people that commenting on LeadsCon. In addition LeadsCon had a Twitter account, so I added everyone connected to them. It wasn't long before all the add requests started coming back to me. I quickly had a list of people, a captive audience of people attending the event. I was back in bed by 3:00am and able to have that all wrapped up. Then throughout the event, I sent out promo updates, links to our site, and funny stuff to generate some buzz...

The effect was a TON of people that were hitting up our booth telling us they've been following us on their twitterberry (twitter app for bberry) and asking "Who's the hilarious person writing all this stuff on your twitter account? I've gotta meet them". In addition, I'm still adding people who are talking about the event, and communicating ongoing messaging to the list. I've even had a couple of business offers come through on DM.

That is incredible targeted, mobile, relevant messaging at it's best. I love this stuff...

CP