Posts from — August 2009

My Creative Director and friend Michael McCormick (Guts of a Burglar blogster) needs a new car (at least I think so). His Ford Explorer is 12 years old, runs like a top and still looks pretty good … on the outside.

The inside is a different matter entirely. Passengers have to fly their legs over the Sirius antenna wire; the spots and stains are, well, spots and stains. The A/C in the back doesn’t work anymore and the vehicle is almost ready for its confirmation or bar mitzvah.

When Michael got this Explorer back in the late ‘90s (it’s his second one), I went with him to the dealership in Queens. He told the saleslady what he wanted, and she asked him what color he liked.

Anything you have is fine, he said. She and I looked at each other in disbelief.

Anyway, I thought the Cash for Clunkers program was a heaven sent opportunity for Michael to get a new ride. He disagreed. He thinks his Chuck (the Truck) is barely broken in. The tires are new, the brakes are new, the oil’s been changed and fluids checked every 3,000 miles. Yada yada.

It took me a while to understand his real reason.

For weeks I encouraged him to go to see the new cars. He wants an Explorer but the closest Ford dealership closed and they don’t make Explorers anymore, anyway.

So, I went to tweetdeck and started asking around. @ScottMonty, Ford’s Twitter spokesperson, gave me some recommendations. Another friend suggested the Flex and sent me photos. No buying action. I asked Michael why he wasn’t moving on this.

Turns out he really and truly doesn’t think taxpayers should be subsidizing his new car. Hmm. Hadn’t thought of that. And, he pointed out, a new vehicle cost a lot more than $4,500, perhaps around $25,000 more for what he wants. Why spend all that dough when he doesn’t need a new car? Men are soooo logical. It’s frustrating. But I already knew that. The new insights this whole episode provided got me thinking.

Not too long ago, the only way Ford could show its cars was in print or television advertising. Now that’s all changed.

What we see on TV or in ads is one-way communication, the company talking at us and controlling the flow of information.

Now we control the flow of information and we can find what we want, when we want it and consult with friends and family and experts along the way. I’ve known all this in theory and in making smaller purchasers for quite a while, but it’s a different matter to experience the whole process for a big ticket item (like a new SUV) in the real world of actually buying it.

In the meantime, people haven’t stopped looking for authenticity. And marketers are paying serious attention to what’s going on in Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. On the web, customers can find anything, competitive prices, colors, and visit a website and buy anything in a NY minute.

Except, of course, Michael. He’ll be driving that car and me – and, horrors, clients – into the ground. Eventually, he’ll chat with a few friends and head off and buy a Flex or Edge or, who knows, a Club Cab F-250 – purple with a yellow interior, that some dealer happens to have on the lot and ready to roll.

A therapy dog can be any breed from a teacup Yorkie to an Irish Wolfhound as long as it’s calm, tolerates other animals and loves to be petted by strangers. They’re great at places like old folks’ homes, hospital wards for kids with long term illnesses, even prisons. Therapy dogs are happy to see you, whoever you are.

I have two cats at home that I think of as therapy animals. Mortimer, huge and orange with an extra toe on each of his four feet, loves everyone; Lucy, small, black and white, and younger likes three people plus Mortimer – and in the whole world that’s it for objects of her affections.

When we had an office near my apartment in New York, I used to bring my cats to work but now that we’re in our Hollywood, Florida marina office two and a half miles from home, I can’t do that anymore.
But I do have Cappy.

Cappy’s a Maltese Terrier who belongs to Bruce and Lara, a nice couple from New England. They sailed into the marina (our office is on the second floor of the Harbor master’s office) a year and a half ago and took a more or less permanent lease on a slip right outside my office window.

They live in their sail boat, and they share our huge downstairs terrace with us and people from other boats. It’s a very collegial gathering and was somewhat staid until Bruce and Lara brought home a tiny white bundle of fur. Cappy.

Dogs need somewhere to run off their leashes but you can’t take a dog off the leash in the marina. So Cappy comes upstairs to run around our offices. And run he does. Nonstop for the first 5 minutes, ripping figure eights around tables and chairs, racing after the balls we throw him for him.

His favorite spot is under my desk where he might find a crumb or two leftover from my lunch. When he (and Bruce and Lara, of course) went up north for a few weeks, I was bereft. No Cappy.

It is interesting that a dog can cheer you up; as you laugh, the creative juices start flowing again. I’m thinking of giving him a job as our Growler in Chief. Last week he accidentally took a small chunk out of Michael’s right hand when they both reached for a tennis ball at the same time. Good thing Michael throws leftie.

Cappy doesn’t know it, and wouldn’t care if he did, but he’s a therapy dog. Thanks, Capster for making Lois Geller Marketing Group’s office (a.k.a. Cappy’s Run), a happier place to work.

Twitter’s site went down for a few hours the other day and within 15 minutes I started feeling the pangs of withdrawal. Why? My goodness, it’s just a web site for short messages, isn’t it?

As I thought about it last night – why am I so attracted to Twitter? – it occurred to me that the reason might lie in Twitter’s competitive value to small companies like mine. In an important way, it gives us a leg up on big companies.

A lot of corporations worry about Twitter. Many of them don’t want to tweet on their own because they can’t control the process tightly; maybe employees will give people a bad impression of their brand. So they turn to their large agencies for help in testing social media. The large agency gives the job to junior creative people who do the best they can. The problem is that they can’t come up with revenue projections for Twitter results.

But small companies can really go to town with Twitter marketing. They can be themselves. If they’re looking for local customers, they can find them on Search. So if, for example, I have a store that specializes in interesting kites, I can talk about all the people who fly kites, I can give ideas for parties, have kite flying contests and sell discount kites, Twitter invite only, say once a month.

After several months, I can track ROI on Twitter much more easily than a large company ever could. This means that small businesses can:

• Build a great big wonderful Brand and voice that sound like they come from a real person;

• Begin to develop really solid friendships.

I’ve been doing this for a while now and I’m seeing real value. And I actually do feel a lot like the man behind the curtain, the Wizard of Twitter, pulling all the right levers.

If you’re interested in a Twitter or Social Media Program, feel free to call: 646-723-3231 or to visit me, on Twitter, of course, at twitter.com/loisgeller