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August 27, 2005
Advertising For The PR Of It: How To Get Publicity From Your Advertising
Our recent article on the racy Paris Hilton ads for Carl's Jr. and Hardees brought a flood of responses from you, our readers. (Didn't read that article? You may want to do so before reading this - Paris Hilton Carl's Jr. Ad)
Most were strongly in support of our stance, but several asked some variation of the question "What about all of the free showings of the ad on the network and local news - aren't they worth a tremendous amount?"
On the surface, those showings literally added millions of exposures without costing anything, probably resulting in the advertising equivalent of quadrupling (at least) the effect of their ad expenditures.
Normally, that's a good thing, except when the conclusion drawn by those who watch the news report is negative.
From what I saw in my community, as well as from the emails that I received, there was a large percentage of customers who viewed that ad, either as an ad or through the publicity surrounding it, who decided to vote with their wallets and never darken the door of a Carl's Jr. or a Hardees again.
I don't know about you, but where I come from, offending customers is a bad thing!
Ah, but what about those who felt the other way and came in to eat because of that ad? Won't they balance out the group that decided to leave?
Sometimes they will, sometimes they won't. Let's look at the numbers for this particular ad.
In our last article we showed how the immediate results of running the ad lost CKE (the parent company) more in profits then they made in extra business. But the key in situations like this is to look at the period of time *after* they take an ad off the air. That's when you can tell whether the additional customers they added to the franchise outweighed those whom they offended.
So, I jump over to CKE's financial results and find...
That Hardee's sales actually dropped 1% in the month after the ad ran, Carl's Jr's remained flat.
So, you spend $10 million in advertising and non-working costs, get the equivalent views of running a $40 million ad campaign, and what do you get as a result? Flat results in one chain and a drop in business in the other. Meanwhile, McDonalds turned in a 4.9% sales increase. Yes, there are many things that drive sales, but if you're running great advertising, you should see sales increases as a result!
On top of that, consider that prior to the Paris ad, CKE's stock was trading at about $16 per share, now it's trading at $12. So, this ad contributed to a 25% loss in the worth of the company - flushing almost a quarter of a Billion dollars in company worth straight down the drain...
Posted at 01:41 PM
August 26, 2005
Owning Up When The Going Gets Rough - The Power of "I Was Wrong"
They say that the 3 most important words in a marriage are "I love you" and that the five most important words are "I'm sorry, I was wrong"
When foam fell off the Shuttle Discovery during it's last launch, NASA faced a whole set of decisions. Most important was what to do about the astronauts. Thankfully, they made the right set of decisions and brought them home safely.
One other key decision they faced was whether to be honest or to follow the traditional path of bureaucratic obfuscation. In a move that is increasingly becoming best practice, NASA chose to come clean.
Michael D. Griffin, NASA's administrator bluntly stated several times that the decision to not deal with the risk of foam breaking off from the Discovery's liquid fuel tank at the spot where it did "was clearly wrong."
And William W. Parsons, the shuttle program manager stated: "You have to admit when you're wrong. (The) foam should not have come off. It came off. We've got to do something about that."
How refreshing! "We were wrong" rather than "it's under investigation".
Michelon (the tire company) learned this lesson too late last June when faults in their tires caused 14 of the 20 cars in the US Grand Prix to drop out of the race. Michelon chose to do nothing and their brand got hammered in the racing press and the consumer's mind. A week later they finally came clean, admitted their fault, and agreed to rebate admission prices for all attendees and to buy all of the tickets for next year's race - a 12 million dollar out-of-pocket error, plus the results from all of the bad will this problem has caused.
The decision to come clean when you're wrong fits with the times. While the kinder, gentler media environment of the past would tacitly accept announcements and answers that revealed nothing, today's reporters (and today's public) want to know the facts. What really did happen and why?
Posted at 11:33 PM
What's That Again? Interpreter For The Deaf
The following announcement was recently run in the newspaper:
Mime at YA City Hall
The Young America Library has scheduled Michael Hennessy, a mime who studied with Marcel Marseau, to perform Friday at 3 p.m. at the Young America City Hall. There will be an interpreter for the hearing impaired.
Ah... our tax dollars at work!
Posted at 02:55 PM
Transcripts, We've Got Transcripts!
You probably are aware that we offer over 60 different CD recordings to help you get more free publicity for your business.
But what you may not know is that we have been working like crazy to create audio transcripts for those recordings in addition to the audio CDs.. These have several advantages:
1. They provide instantly-downloadable information, so you don't have to wait for the CD to ship.
2. They provide a resource for those who would rather read than listen.
3. You can get both the CD and audio transcript (so you can listen in your car AND have a written reference ) at a drastic discount over buying each of them separately.
We haven't gotten all of the CDs converted into transcripts yet, but here's a list of those ones we currently offer as transcripts. You may want to review them to see if there's anything there that might help to build your business!
Posted at 02:37 PM
