We thought it would be interesting to talk to a few golfers about Tiger Woods and his current situation…especially as it relates to a lucrative Nike contract. So we went to the Longview Golf Centre with a camera and a list of questions. This video is what a few golfers said about the situation. We’d love to hear your thoughts.
What would you do if you were the Marketing Director of Nike Golf?
Suggest your 13-year-old shut down the X-box and exercise, or drink a glass of milk instead of Mountain Dew and you’re in for a battle.
But if the same suggestions come from one of his friends, it’s an entirely different story. For young teens, peer pressure is everything.
That was the idea behind the Super-Power Summit — a youth wellness initiative that we managed for the Midwest Dairy Council, the Iowa Department of Education’s Team Nutrition Program and Iowa State University Extension for Families and 4H.
The day-long summit feature inspiring speakers such as Charlie Wittmack, who climbed to the top of Mount Everest, and Tim Dwight, an All-American from the University of Iowa who went on to become a leading kick returner in the NFL.
The event also featured a street marketing events that engaged the downtown lunch crowd with physical activities and important messages about eating healthy.
More importantly, why should I follow you?
This Twitter thing maybe the largest bandwagon in the world. Micro blogging about burritos, traffic jams, and mocha. Wooohoo!
There seems to be two sides to the issue. You love it or you think it’s the most worthless waste of time ever to hit a mobile phone.
I’ve been getting follow notices from the strangest places. A grocery store twenty miles away from me. A convenience store chain. A fishing guide in Florida. Even a competing ad agency! Okay, I admit I follow them.
I appreciate their belief that I have something intelligent to say in 140 characters, but do they really expect me to reciprocate? Where’s the strategy? Where’s the cross promotion? Where’s your boss?
Social media is a great way to “socialize your brand” and it’s also a great way to waste your time and to look silly. Have a strategy? Answer the question, “Why should anyone follow me?”
If you have an answer to that question, use it in your bio…maybe even your name. If the answer is “Great deals at the grocery store!” maybe I’ll follow to see how great your deals are. But if your answer is, “Because I’m trying to use social media so I don’t have to spend any money!” don’t waste my time.
As an agency, we do a lot of work influencing personal behavior. It’s become a specialty. We reduce teen smoking, encourage people to seek treatment for problem gambling and substance abuse. We encourage middle schoolers to eat healthy and exercise.
Tomorrow I’m speaking at the 2009 Prevention Symposium put on by Training Resources a Division of Iowa Behavioral Health Association. The presentation is about communications strategies to reduce underage and binge drinking.
In nearly all social marketing situations the target audience already knows what the right thing to do is. Smoking is bad for you. Gambling too much is bad for you. Drugging is bad for you. Yet people do it. And if you tell them not to, they usually do it more. It’s not rational.
In all cases, the secret is within the target audience. We work really hard to peel back the layers of resistance to find messaging strategies that influence the audience’s thinking. Sometimes in an evolutionary way and sometimes revolutionary, but always in an honest way. Don’t tell a teen they’re going to die as a result of having a drink because they see people drinking who don’t die. Find a way to help them make intelligent decisions and remember always in the end it is their decision. If you respect that, you’ll have more effect changing their thinking.
When we talk to teens, and we talk to them a lot, they tell us their biggest motivation for doing anything is fun.
They go to shopping malls for fun. Football games for fun. Facebook for fun. MySpace for fun. YouTube for fun. They watch fun television programs. Like fun movies. Come to think of it, it’s not much different for adults.
Nothing supports the need for a fun factor more than social networks and YouTube is a prime example. Marketers lust after the views that amateurs get by accident. The “Charlie Bit Me…Again” video above had 118 million views. But not all amateurs are any more successful than the pros who think they can make their YouTube channel the next NBC.
Without fun, your video will be limited by those searching expressly for you.
Facebook is much the same. Take the State of Nebraska’s Facebook page. It has 1,587 friends and fans. Not bad. But when you look at the page it is a never ending list of governmental announcements. Should Nebraskans be interested? Probably, but it’s not fun. Contrast that with the fan page for Nebraska Football. It has over 52,000 users who access the page at least once a month. Fun, as well as life and death.
The fun factor influences our job satisfaction, life, marriages and leisure. It’s why we spend mone on vacations, dining, dancing, concerts and sporting events. It’s why we celebrate when we win and cry when we lose.
If we can harness fun in our communications, they become far more effective. Hopefully, Charlie helped this post be a little more fun.
