How to FAIL at a Super Bowl Marketing Campaign

The Super Bowl is so much more than just a game.  Not only is the event the culmination of the biggest sport in the United States, but it's an opportunity for marketers to put their product in front of millions of potential consumers.  

For the non-football fans, the commercials are the best part.  Companies willingly fork over tons of money to make sure that they are in on the action.

Although this particular example has nothing to do with a $1,000,000 30-second commercial spot, it is still a missed opportunity to take advantage of this hugely popular event.  Take a look at this "advertisement" that a local pizza place put on their pizza box:

This normally wouldn't be that upsetting, but i recently finished reading David Meerman Scott's World Wide Rave while apparently the person responsible for marketing at this place hasn't.  It goes against much of what his book advocates.

I'll preface this with the fact this company isn't usually open on Sundays, so i give them props for being open.  However, these times are EST.  As you can see, they are open from Noon until 5pm; the Super Bowl didn't even start until 6:30.  So... your only option is to serve cold pizza or reheat it yourself at game-time.

If this pizza place wanted to help its customers, it would be open during game-time when party-goers were ready for a slice.  If this pizza place really wanted to help its customers, it would offer delivery service even though that's something that they never do.

This place serves a mean pie and has a loyal following.  Imagine the response if this place went out of their way and offered delivery to its customers during the biggest sporting event of the year.  It would have created buzz.  Perhaps not a World Wide Rave, as Scott suggests, but it would have generated a ton of local buzz at a low cost.  

What are your thoughts?  Am i just being crazy or do you think that this local pizza place missed a huge opportunity?  Their hearts were in the right place by being open when they normally wouldn't, but the execution just wasn't there.   

Notes & Quotes: World Wide Rave by David Meerman Scott

As you may or may not know, professionally i'm a marketer.  I enjoy a good marketing book.  We should all aim to improve ourselves in the areas of our lives in which we invest the most time.  

The following are my favorite quotes from David Meerman Scott's World Wide Rave: Creating Triggers that get Millions of People to Spread Your Ideas and Share Your Stories.

1. Rules of the Rave: a) Nobody cares about your products b) No coercion required c) Lose control d) Put down roots e) Create triggers that encourage people to share f) Point the world to your (virtual) doorstep.
2. I often use the word stories when I talk about the content people want to share.  I do that on purpose.  People love to share stories.
3. Cindy Gordon estimates that 350 million people around the world heard news that Universal Orlando Resort was creating The Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park -- all by telling just seven people.
4. "New media has created a new marketing environment where the old rules of marketing no longer apply." Cindy Gordon
5. Success comes from the fact that people want to share this content with their friends, colleagues, and family members.
6. The concept of telling people that they aren't allowed to use mobile phones at the start of a session and the encouraging it later is brilliant.  People like being a bit rebellious, doing things that they were told is not allowed.
7. When you focus on your buyers, you're taking the first, and most important, step to triggering a World Wide Rave.
8. Nobody cares about your products except you and the others in your organization.
9. When it's obvious that you understand your buyers and their problems, it jars your visitors into paying attention.
10. Never talk about your products and services again.  Instead, focus on your buyer personas and how you can solve problems for them.
11. How can you push the envelope of what's tried and true in your market?
12. You've got to think in terms of spreading ideas, not generating leads.
13. Think about how your information spreads online.  If you are clamping down and exerting control, then your ideas aren't spreading as they could be.
14. If you require an email address or other personal information, perhaps only 2 percent of your audience will bother to download your stuff.
15. When CEOs and executives push back with an ROI excuse, I ask, "What's the return on investment of the army of landscapers who are constantly at work on the plantings around your corporate headquarters?"
16. What works online is creating content ourselves -- information that people want to share.
17. The key for success is honesty, transparency, and not to be an apparent sellout.
18. One needs to think of hundreds of ideas and then choose a handful to "fund" (i.e. actually create).
19. When a campaign starts to take off and spread on the Web, give it all the care and attention you can, in order to turn it into a World Wide Rave.
20. The best triggers are often the most imaginative.
21. An interactive tool is frequently the perfect device for generating a World Wide Rave.
22. Sometimes, just being the first product out of the gate, or the first to exploit a new technology or change in regulations, can lead to success.
23. Think about the kinds of user-generated content that would naturally tie in with your product, and devise an online contest.
24. A great way to spread your ideas is to use your customers to tell your stories for you.
25. You can't trigger a World Wide Rave if you're invisible.
26. Performing search engine optimization on a crap-filled site just makes it slightly less crappy.
27. Go to Google and do a search for the most important phrases that your buyers are using to find organizations like yours, and look at where you fall in the search results.
28. Tweaking bad Web content is just putting lipstick on a pig.  Don't settle for bad content.
29. What proprietary data and metrics do you have that would be valuable to others?
30. High search engine rankings are not created through manipulation or trickery.  They are the result of offering excellent content.
31. All your blog posts should be good, but it's impossible to make them all great.
32. I have strong evidence that "negative" headlines and titles often generate a lot more clicks that "positive" ones.
33. Take a look at your site and find a link you can flip around.  Measure the traffic before and after the switch and see which version works better.
34. Write something that people will find clever or funny but that will still tie back to your organization in some way.
35. Web content in the form of true thought-leadership--the kind that tells important, thoughtful stories--holds the potential to influence many thousands of your buyers in ways that traditional marketing and PR simply cannot.
36. It isn't about "the message."  It's about being helpful.
37. You must create some free Web content that drives people to you.
38. "If you don't find a literary agent falling into your lap quickly enough, if you feel like your work is done and is ready to be shared with the world, self-publish.  Give your work to the world.  Let it go." Lisa Genova
39. When will you stop making excuses? (or When will you stop allowing your bosses to make excuses for you?)
40. "At some point, it dawns on you that the corporate ladder is really more of a treadmill. You run faster, work harder, climb higher, sweat more blood, and push through stifling fatigue.  But, in the end, all too often, you're no freer or happier that the day you began." Jonathan Fields

If you liked the quotes, consider picking up a copy of the book yourself.  At the time of this blog post, the Kindle edition is completely free.

Melt's Marketing Mastery

I'm a sucker for good marketing.    

Melt, a restaurant near Cleveland, Ohio specializing in gourmet grilled cheese, might have one of the coolest marketing tactics around.  If a loyal customer gets one of three approved Melt logos tattooed somewhere on their body, they get 25% off their purchase for life.  

(this one being the most popular)

As of today, over 400 people have taken the restaurant up on their offer.  More details are available on their website and Facebook page.

Not only will these people be customers forever, but they are sure to tell other people about the restaurant as well.  Word of Mouth at its finest. 

Hats off to the team who thought of that one.

Disclaimer:  The food is delicious.  A stunt like this probably wouldn't work if your place is shitty.