I teach a advertising course at Capilano University. This week I had Jill Munro come to speak to my class. Jill is a Vancouver girl and the creator of “Creamy Garlic Caesar” chips, one of four Canada wide finalists in the Lays “Do us a flavour” new chip creation contest. For those of you who follow my blog regularly, you will recall I first wrote about this contest back in … [Read more...]
What makes word of mouth work? Trust & targeting
“Word of mouth is more than 10 times more effective than advertising.” “Word of mouth generates more than twice the sales of paid advertising in categories as diverse as skincare and mobile phones.” Both of these quotes originate from the McKinsey Quarterly, a quarterly publication by McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm. They’re pretty … [Read more...]
5 simple steps to manage your social media
Wasting time - we all do it. An email arrives that interrupts what we were doing, and we decide to deal with it “just to get rid of it”. Meanwhile a half hour later, we’ve lost our focus, barely get back on track and another interruption hits. Welcome to the workday of many. Layer on top of it the multiple story lines developing on Facebook with friends or family, and … [Read more...]
Behaviour economics challenged: What if gym members had to pay more if they don’t work out? And how about pre-browsing Facebook to select your airplane seatmate?
Often fitness memberships are seen as sunk costs, especially if paid at the beginning of the year. But behaviour economics tells us that people are more motivated by immediate consequences than by future possibilities. So what if you turned the business model on it ear? That’s exactly what a couple Harvard grads did in 2011 with Gym-Pact. They offered customers … [Read more...]
8 Reasons why Lay’s Do Us a Flavour contest is brilliant marketing
The “Maple Moose” flavour begged to be selected from the shelf of chips, if for no other reason than the name, and the promise of a great photo-op, along with a Molson Canadian beer in hand, for my visiting American relatives at the cottage. Maple Moose was one of four finalists in Lay’s Canada’s “Do Us a Flavour” chip naming contest. While there were over 600,000 … [Read more...]
