Facebook Landing Page
I’ve been challenging myself lately to make our Facebook presence stronger. Besides making unique, relevant content to better engage our fans, I’ve also stumbled upon a very simple way to increase our number of followers: the landing page. Mashable did a great How-To write up on it and it literally takes less than five minutes to set up (minus design time). Whenever someone visits our page who is not our fan will now be greeted with that landing page. The insights here are simple:
- Low search cost – one of the few instances where an extra click should not turn someone off due to someone’s innate curiosity to see the wall (this is more opinion than fact).
- Motivation - people still sometimes need an extra push to commit to “liking” something
- Instant gratification – you are instantly rewarded when you hit like by being shown the wall
- Valuable real estate – we use it to showcase our brand voice
- Zero cost – Design time plus 5 minutes to execute
Check out the result below.
Patron Social Club: Building A Brand Community
How do you create community around your brand? And how do you make this community be composed of the most influential tastemakers and devote brand followers? Patron must have been thinking about how to answer these types of questions when creating the Patron Social Club. This members-only site is a hub for tequila enthusiasts and enables members to gain access to exclusive cocktail recipes, special events, and extremely polished event recaps and more. I am not even that big of a tequila enthusiast, but stumbling upon the site actually dramatically increased my likelihood of purchasing Patron and generally made me appreciate the brand more. So why is this site effective in developing community and increasing brand equity?
Content is king. At the end of the day, it all starts with compelling content that people actually want to consume. The videos were well produced and contained relevant information that I found entertaining, from drink recipes to the chef’s thinking behind the courses he served. In fact, in some ways it reminded me of a well done Food Network show. It didn’t feel like marketing, simply like watching a mini show I would have watched regardless of whether it was on youtube or in this case, a brand website.
Reward loyalty in a smart way. Incentives work well, but well thought out and unique incentives work better. Patron could have easily rewarded me with a promotion based offer after interacting with the site such as X% off my next purchase. Instead, the website made it clear that the more I participated the more likely I would get an actual invite to one of these secret dining society events. That made me intrigued and engaged me a lot more than a simple offer would have.
Appeal to tastemakers. The site can’t be too popular or mainstream by nature. It needs to stay in some ways a “secret.” After finding out about this website, I shared the info about it with at least 5 friends. For those 5 minutes I became a mini brand ambassador for Patron and passionately explained the brand to others. Whenever a brand can empower this type of advocacy, they are definitely doing something right.
In conclusion, building a brand community is very difficult, but when done right it can yield dramatic results. The Patron Social Club is one prime example of that.
After a hectic two months of planning, everything came together and sweetgreen’s sweetlife festival became a reality. We partnered with Rock The Vote to create an awesome DC music festival experience featuring a DJ set by Hot Chip, along with U.S. Royalty, The Love Language, Phil Ade, Will Eastman, Grant Shapiro, and Matthew Hemerlein. The festival had 12 sponsors, over 750 people stopped by, and best of all we got a chance to raise money for DC Farm To School, which works to get healthy and sustainable food into the DC public school system.
This festival was also my crash course in event marketing and I wanted to share some lessons I learned along the way:
Start planning early. When people first heard our plans two months ago, everyone was quick to point out “timing issues.” They were definitely right. An event like this requires a lot of preparation – from landing music acts, to securing sponsors, to planning logistics. In the end, everything came together nicely, but having even an extra month or two would have removed much last minute stress.
Making the ticket process go viral. Getting the word out about this festival was fairly easy thanks to our social media reach. Ours fans and followers had to retweet or post a facebook message about the festival in order to gain access to the ticket page and due to this process, tickets sold out in less than a day.
Small details matter. People got really excited when they discovered that their entrance tickets were wooden VIP style passes on lanyards, as opposed to regular tickets. Everyone also received free pins, stickers, and t shirts.
Have custom brand activation options. Different sponsors have different goals and strategies. Make sure you can work together with each sponsor individually to create a custom sponsorship package that works for them.
Breathe. People easily get stressed out from the event planning process. Take a break and relax. Everything will come together.
Have an action plan for the day of the event. This means have written directions by the hour for everyone. Otherwise all efficiency is lost. Also assign general leaders that staff can reach out to if they aren’t sure about what task they should be doing.
Below are some event photos. I am already looking forward to the next festival!
All photos courtesy of Keaton Bedell.
sweetgreen Bikes
So I know it’s been awhile since I’ve blogged, but this sweetlife festival I’ve been working on for sweetgreen has literally taken up most of my waking hours for the past 2 months. I’m looking forward to sharing what I’ve learned about my first true event planning/marketing experience in the next week after I get a little bit of rest. In the meanwhile, here is a cool project that I did for our office to make sure that we become the Apple of the fast casual concept world.
sweetgreen Update
Time for some updates in terms of what I have been doing with sweetgreen. Yep, that’s me jumping in that photo in front of our 4th location that just opened this week! The past few months have been incredibly challenging, fast paced, fun, and rewarding. I guess I can finally say that I have accomplished something I wrote down to do a little over a year ago after taking that first entrepreneurship class, and that is getting paid to do something I love. So what I have I been up to? I will do my best to answer with pictures and some limited commentary.
This is what my finished brand planning book looked like after about 250+ hours of work. Making similar pitch books for Blue Cross Blue Shield at Arnold this past summer and The Century Ad Council campaign for AAF National Student Advertising competition, along with the help and guidance of my friend and mentor Charlie Jones, CEO of Brand Intersection Group, made this process pretty smooth. Basically, this document enabled us to understand our best customer, our brand at its best, and how the two intersect in a meaningful way.
This photo is interesting for two reasons. First, it’s a perfect example of a typical project I get to oversee from start to finish and a great example of how we like to think at sweetgreen. We wanted to have reusable bags, but we also were looking for something out of the ordinary – sexier and more practical. Enter the world of FlipNTumble bags, which roll up into peach sized balls in the matter of a few seconds. The most rewarding part was seeing my design literally come to life in the span of a few weeks. The second reason I like this photo is because the model we recruited for it is actually none other than our social and digital media ninja, Theresa Dold, who is the newest addition to our marketing department. She has an awesome skill set that complements mine and has proven to be invaluable since she’s joined.
And finally, this is a photo from one of our “Green Carpet” events that was held last month. Cobrasnake eat your heart out. Seeing these type of events come to life really motivate me to continue pushing our brand to thrive in the nontraditional media marketing space. I’ve decided that my next personal goal is to make sweetgreen one of AdAge’s hottest brands. Let’s see if I can hold myself accountable.
BMW Vs. Audi Billboard Wars
Comparative advertising can be a double edged sword, as Audi surely must have found out after putting up its outdoor work in Santa Monica last year. I was reminded of this ad work during a recent sweetgreen brainstorming session. Here is the press release about it:
Juggernaut Advertising, an independent advertising agency headquartered in Santa Monica, CA, has initiated a tactical outdoor marketing campaign on behalf of BMW of Santa Monica. The campaign is in response to Audi’s current billboards challenging BMW with the headline “Your move, BMW.”Juggernaut Advertising’s creative work features the BMW M3 with the headline “Checkmate.” and is positioned prominently within the same sightline to westbound traffic as the Audi ad. Juggernaut approached BMW of Santa Monica after identifying a unique and immediate geographical opportunity along the highly trafficked Santa Monica Blvd. corridor between Beverly Hills and Santa Monica.
“When we heard the idea, we loved it and couldn’t resist going forward,” says Del Montell, Jr. of Santa Monica BMW.
My favorite aspect of the work is that it was opportunistic and NOT done by BMW’s agency of record. It should also serve as a reminder of the power of smaller nimble ad agencies who are simply closer locally to the client and the customers. Check out a photo below.
2010: Pursuit of Happiness
It’s a new year, a new decade, and a time for resolutions. My thoughts on resolutions:
- Resolutions should be clear and measurable.
- Resolutions should be viewed the same way as goals.
- Resolutions should always be written down.
- Resolutions should fit and complement each other.
This year, all of my resolutions are going to be clearly aligned with one simple theme: happiness. Sounds a bit lofty, but it’s actually quite simple: I will do more things I enjoy, spend more time with people that matter, and make decisions to actively avoid any potential future regrets.
The visual and song I immediately think of is Kid Cudi’s Pursuit of Happiness. It’s a beautiful music video which you can check out below. The directing is some of the best I’ve seen. This video is something that keeps me motivated and inspired. Cheers!
Rebrand/Redesign for New Year
In the spirit of keeping things fresh and the upcoming new year, I’ve redesigned my blog and twitter – a playful take on everything this blog is about.
Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday and a great New Year!
John Jarasa / Heavy Hitters Magazine
Two weeks ago I got to speak with John Jarasa, the editor-in-chief of Heavy Hitters magazine. If you know anything about me or follow the blog, you probably know that I am a big fan of the publication, so it was awesome to speak with the man behind it all. Heavy Hitters is a revolutionary magazine that can best be summed up in one of the lines of copy I saw on one of the covers: “get into the minds and garages of millionaires.” The articles focus on successful people and their stories about how they achieved success, all while showing some incredible car eye candy. John was able to share some great insights with me about how he got to be where he is in his career:
If you want to be strong, understand the whole industry you are part of. John told me how he has previously been in all positions related to the magazine industry, from writing to shooting photos, to editing, and that all of his experience enabled him to effectively manage people later on. This seems to be a theme I am hearing a lot lately – too much specialization can limit your ability to be an effective leader.
Align yourself with good people. Those who surround you hold tremendous influence on you. Like minded people serve to inspire you and keep you on track to accomplishing your goals.
Don’t follow the set standard. Don’t hesitate to look at things differently and act accordingly. More importantly, seek to constantly re-invent yourself. Any great concept has a 10 year lifespan at most.
Finally, trade in value instead of $$$. There are always non traditional ways to exchange value with strategic partners. Harness the power of your networks to work for you and always provide meaningful value to anyone that helps you out.
John has a great blog which you can check out here!
QD3′s Lil Wayne Carter Documentary #1 on iTunes
The controversial documentary takes a look at the superstar rapper’s personal and professional life. All lawsuits and Sundance praises aside, what is most impressive about this release is that it is completely independent and that the marketing was 99% viral. This feat should serve as inspiration to independent production companies and record labels alike – it is possible to release compelling content that will find success in the mainstream.
There are two masterminds behind the up and coming urban digital entertainment entity QD3: Quincy Jones III, son of a famous music impresario and TV exec, and Paul A. Campbell, a former Microsoft business development exec. Together, they have been able to craft an integrated, multi platform distribution model. They believe there is on simple key to success in this arena:
“In the Web 2.0 world, availability of content is key. Amazon and eBay made their fortunes on making products available any time, all the time. Consumers generally want as much content as possible delivered efficiently and securely in a way that they can customize and control” (Fast Company).
The lesson is simple: in order to successfully play with the big boys of the industry, smaller firms must strive to better read customer needs and desires while filling in gaps left by their competitors.
You can check out a trailer for The Carter below.
*Note: At time of writing the title is now #8 on iTunes. It was #1 the weekend of Nov 17, 2009 when it was first released.
