Ad Tactics from Japan: Tissue Flyers
What is the best way to prevent people from throwing your flyers seconds after you’ve handed it out to them? Give them something they need — tissue wipes! These tissue paper packets that my friend brought back from Tokyo have advertising content either printed directly onto the plastic wrapping or come with a printed flyer insert placed at the base of the packet below the stack of tissue wipes.
YOUR AUDIENCE, THE RECEIVER
Consider the fact that every time someone takes out the tissue pack to get a sheet or two to use, they are exposed to the ad again and again until they finish using the tissues. Based on common sense, most people will keep these tissue packets for as long as there are still clean sheets of tissues in there that haven’t been used yet. On a subliminal level these ads are presented to the naked eye as it navigates through to find the opening of the packet. The ad presentation process is cleverly placed within the natural engagement process of a person getting a sheet of tissue. On an attentive level, people who are inquisitive would naturally let their eyes roam and analyze the literature of the products they interact with, thus allowing you that opening to send your message across.
SECONDARY ATTENTION, THE RECEIVER’S IMMEDIATE NETWORK
Here’s another possible scenario. If a tissue pack makes it around a post-meal table, other people are also exposed to these ads. I imagine some of the more attractive and creative ads would act as conversation triggers, and what better way to get people to talk about your products, services, and brand. What a smart, cost-effective, and practical way to advertise!
There are many other scenarios where such a tissue flyer may work very well for some. Everyone needs to wipe their mouths, sweat, and goo off of their faces and skin. Why haven’t western businesses caught on to this yet? I’m just waiting to see the western world get creative and adopt this smart little tactic to communicate their products and services to an audience that are just waiting to hoard some free packets of tissue paper for daily use.
COMPELLING AVENUE OF OPPORTUNITY
But of course, I would not bother discussing this little-known avenue if I did not believe there is a compelling potential for success behind it. I do however believe marketing has to be relevant or it is akin to flushing your money down the toilet. Retailers and restaurants will probably benefit from the tissue flyer the most because of its relevance. People need to wipe after they eat, mothers need to wipe their babies constantly, and women need to soak oil off of their t-zone, and people generally need tissue paper to maintain personal hygiene.
LIFE, INTERCEPTED
In any economic climate (not limited to a recessive or depressive one) businesses have to be creative and work smart to avoid sinking. That acumen should reach a breadth that is not confined to a design canvas alone. Businesses need to seek ways to appeal to an audience that are more resistant to traditional advertising, and a very controversial but promising place to start is to embrace the way of life of your target audience. By intercepting the process in which they carry out the necessary steps to complete a task, you have automatically created an awareness of your message, however effective. In the case of the tissue flyer, the goal for the user is to remove a lingering discomfort by way of drying and cleaning the body and its immediate environment of undesired particles. In order to execute that task successfully, people would need to look at the tissue wrapper’s surface to find the opening in order to reach the holy whiteness of a solution to their problems, which is tucked inside the glory that is your ad message.
I think it is an absolutely brilliant idea. What do you think?
Change.gov: Obama Continues To Use the Web
Ladies and gentleman, check out http://www.change.gov. I am officially rendered speechless for the rest of the night, but I thought I’d share this with you. I am especially impressed that Obama has put his agenda out for all to track. That is so incredibly professional of him. Kudos to him and his team for even bothering!
I admire the fact that the site was all done in anticipation of Obama’s victory because it shows that a lot of pre-work was done before he was even elected president. I’ll bet you ten dollars there’s a PMI or PRINCE2 certified programme manager behind Obama internet projects. This is exciting stuff, so very exciting!
CNN: How Obama Used the Web
This is proof you really cannot ignore the Internet. Barack Obama used Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, and relied on viral marketing to further his campaign.
The Recycling of Advertising Ideas
The Beer Boys have come together to back Obama! Here is a 2008 rendition of the Budweiser Wassup Campaign from 2000 that is adapted for the Obama presidential campaign. Although I think this idea did outlive its appeal on television sets, to see it resurface in the context of the U.S. election is a delight. This goes to show that good ideas, even those that have gone stale can be reused and adapted for other brands through capitalizing on the relationships that were formed by a legacy brand. In this case, the Obama brand is clearly benefiting from its genius. Enjoy!
Project: Dishez
I have been thinking of creating a social network for global epicureans for a while now and have finally decided to use Ning and the city of London as a starting point. I’m still debating whether or not to modify and scale the social network on Ning, and that largely depends on how popular it gets. Here’s the social network I created to share my culinary adventures in London. http://dishez.ning.com
RESEARCH
This project prompted me to search for suitable white-label social platforms to run my social network on and there are many out there. Jeremiah has maintained a list since 2007 and there are a few new ones that have popped up here and there. I have reviewed about a dozen social platforms today from OneSite, Pluck, PHPizabi, PeopleAggregator, KickApps, Momo, Drupal, Kwiqq, Converdge, and TamTamy to name the main ones.
FEASIBILITY
I am equally glad and humbled by the fact that there are predecessors like menuism.com, friendseat.com and dishola.com out there who have beat me to the chase in terms of initial crowd-sourcing and strategy formulation. This creates contrast and challenges my business case, as I see the need to spend circa 400 hours to develop a social network of any true value.
Since there are already existing dish review and rating sites out there I must think of an even better product that would create more impact and be easier to deploy. My consolation is that Google was a latecomer in the search engine game and was able to triumph over search engines we don’t even remember anymore. The technologist in me says yes but the planner in me is putting down an emphatic “no.” At least not until I have passed my ideas through a feasibility study, analyzed the business side of things and plan this like any other client project.
RESERVATIONS
I am struggling to see when these websites will make real money and whether or not the resources invested into the content strategy formulation and development of these social networks can be justified. A cool idea is just that. If it doesn’t have a clear direction, is a dead-horse that sucks up resources and does not make money, we don’t have a project. The imperative is a business case. Until I have that clearly mapped out I will simply just use original content to fuel interest in testing and reviewing the different white-label social platforms out there.
Do leave me your thoughts.
The Web’s Eventful Week in July
Last week was so eventful as far as the web world goes that it would be blasphemous not to make a note of it.
FIRST, THERE WAS THE IPHONE 3G FRENZY…
The crazy queues you witnessed have generated $330 million in sales over a few short days and caused a month-long inventory shortage. It is just a month’s wait if you really want one. However, If you find that you are being tempted to lie, cheat and steal to get one, don’t do it because there are always some on eBay.
FORRESTER LOSES TWO
Earlier in the month, Charlene Li one of my favorite analysts (co-author of Groundswell) announced that she was leaving Forrester and Friday was her last day. Coincidentally Peter Kim announced that Friday was also his last day at Forrester. He will be joining Jeffrey Dachis (founder of Razorfish, Inc.) to start a social computing endeavor. Their insight and presence as analysts will be missed, but I’m sure the wealth of information and skills that they have gathered at Forrester will be used to the fullest extent to excel in whatever they will be dabbling with moving forward. In short, we won’t be hearing the end of them.
Let us all hope that Josh Bernoff and Jeremiah Owyang will continue to stay with Forrester for a while longer, and that we didn’t just witness the beginning of an exodus of top-class talent from the IT research company that many of us really smart people have come to depend on for insight. Saying that, Forrester is hiring more researchers and analysts so if you would like to give it a shot now is the right time to send your résumés and CVs across!
JASON CALACANIS RETIRES FROM BLOGGING
An even more dramatic news last week was Jason Calacanis‘ announcement that he will be retiring from blogging. The CEO of Mahalo.com states that he will be maintaining an exclusive mailing list of no more than 750 people (so far that is the news) so for the hundreds and thousands of people who have fallen in love with Taurus and Fondue… this is your cue to go get your own pet.
SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES
Other than that, Twitter acquires Summize, FriendFeed has been getting a lot of coverage and a spin-off aggregator called Moopz is all-the-buzz. I thought I’d cover last week’s underground headlines for you in a neat and nice little summary.
Project Management: More Templates on OnProjects.net
This is a short but useful post while I am busy working on a major piece. I wanted to share more documentation and project management templates with project managers and folks who have real businesses to run from OnProjects.net. There’s a wealth of project management templates and project toolkits from Cornell University, The Tasmanian Government, and even some more Prince2 templates thanks to the blogger called Duardo. Let me know what you think!
What About User-Generated Advertisements?
I wanted to share this blog post, Letting your Community Create your Advertisements by Jeremiah Owyang. I think what Dell has done with their Regeneration campaign and the way they are pointing in terms of how the advertising industry will pick up from this is not something to be ignored.
Seesmic: A Video Hello from Jackie
iPhone 3G: Apple Store in London
Here’s Mike a.k.a. @sizemore lurking around at the Apple Store in London before heading off to the Coach and Horses. Maybe I should have gone to tuttle today.
Who?
JACQUELINE MIAO
Web Strategist
PRINCE2 Project Manager
Location: London, U.K.-
