Going Green & Word-of-Mouth Marketing
Going Green – Corporate Social Responsibility – Sustainability – Whatever you want to call it – Prior to the current economic climate, companies big and small were all buying into the concept that going green could improve their bottom line.
The general thought behind this belief was that a large enough segment of consumers cared enough to not only purchase, but also promote products to their friends that they deemed as better for the environment.
For a time this worked, but as more and more companies transitioned it became less and less of a competitive advantage, which combined with an increased overhead caused many companies to discontinue any green initiative.
It’s a shame that the only reason many companies choose to go green was to make more green, but moving forward if we ever want this movement to continue – it has to come from consumers.
This post was inspired by this nice viral video by the AARP:
Jay Leno, Habitual Behaviors and Niche Marketing
NBC confirmed today that they are pulling the plug on the Jay Leno Show prime time experiment.
The experiment started when NBC had to figure out what it could do to keep Leno in their line-up while still promoting the up-and-coming late night show host Conan O’Brien.
Moving Leno to prime time seemed logical. NBC could produce the show at a fraction of the cost to produce a full-hour drama. So despite a drop in ratings, the network figured they could keep profit margins steady.
The lower ratings trickled down to the local news affiliates, who struggled to keep good ratings themselves. The affiliates were the group who ultimately called for the end to the experiment.
It’s sad it had to end this way for the affiliates who had to let a few more good reporters go. Count me as one person who is looking forward to order being restored. For what it is worth, I always preferred Leno to Letterman and never really got into Conan. And as much as I liked Leno, during prime time, there were other shows I preferred.
What does this have to do with Marketing?
Consumers are creatures of habit. If you change something major about a product, like at what time it can be consumed, you run the risk of losing even the most loyal consumers. Which is what happened to me. The show didn’t fit into my schedule anymore, so I quit watching.
And aside from habits, Leno was up against better competition. Prime time television viewers weren’t interested in viewing late night television. It was like trying to sell a KIA at a Cadillac dealership.
Lessons learned from this experiment are that we must carefully consider the consequences of changing a major component of an established product with an established customer. Habits are a tough thing to change.
The Breakdown on RSS Feeds
RSS is a technology that allows for content to be delivered online automatically to those who subscribe to it. Blogs and microblogs(Twitter) utilize this technology to deliver content and updates.
A 2008 study showed that only 11% of consumers had adopted the technology, which has steered many marketers away from really utilizing the technology.
Despite these numbers, it’s important to note that on any given 15-minute surf through the world wide web, 100% of web consumers will at some point consume content served to them through RSS.
On a recent visit to Mpls St. Paul Magazine’s health web page, I noticed that they were serving content directly from Mayo Clinic’s health blog utilizing RSS. In the PR world of trying to get stories placed in newspapers – that’s like a grand slam everyday. In my opinion, it doesn’t make much sense to ignore this technology simply because consumers haven’t latched on to it.
To learn more about RSS and RSS readers, check out this video by Commoncraft:
Marketing Breakdown 