Marketing Monday: Nervous Nellies

Every Monday is a preview of a company, person, or website doing something cool in terms of marketing. Have an idea? Let me know! I met Anne Beerits at Nervous Nellies Jams and Jellies when she was one of my first real clients. She was so nice and fun to work with and...

Marketing Monday: Method

Mondays, the Breaking Even blog likes to profile a business, non-profit, or person doing cool things online. If you have an idea, let me know about it! A few years ago, my first dog Sadie spent a lot of time licking my kitchen floor. I hadn’t thought much about...

Marketing Monday: Time Warner Cable

Every Monday, it’s an example of a business, non-profit, or website doing something interesting to promote itself online. Got an idea? Let me know!

Now I’m not a big fan on national cable companies but I thought how Time Warner is handling their Disney/ABC negotiations pretty interesting.

They are keeping customers informed via email.

I’ve gotten a few updates about the current negotiations via Time Warner Cable email (and yes, I opted not to receive anything extra). I haven’t unsubscribed because these emails aren’t frequent. Also in their favor is they tend to be short and all driving customers to another website if they want longer versions of anything:http://www.rolloverorgettough.com/

They are driving their customers to a separately branded website.

Time Warner needs to keep running its day-to-day operations going on their company website, and these cable negotiations are a small part of what it does. So, for this ‘campaign’ they’ve set up a different website for educational (and political) purposes. I appreciate how they have their company name in the sidebar (as in they aren’t pretending to be some third party group). But it is smart of them to keep their advocacy separate from their business, at least in terms of branding.

An informative graphic: saying more to people than they'd typically read.

Marketing Monday: Jet Blue

Every Monday, Breaking Even looks at a business, website, or non-profit doing cool things online. Have an idea? Contact me and let me know!

It’s easy to do the whole internet marketing bit when things are going well but what about when you have a PR disaster? How do you handle bad press about your company when you’ve made yourself very available online?

Jet Blue had an employee freak out on them last week. He’s been getting tons of press and I don’t feel a need to give him any more.

That said, I do need to say how Jet Blue has handled it seems really great.

They’re keeping calm and carrying on.
The natural instinct when something doesn’t go your way is to disappear for awhile. But JetBlue continues their Twitter customer service and Facebook notifications about news and events.

They briefly and professionally addressed it on their company blog.
It would be weird to completely ignore the controversy but what should you say when you don’t want to be libelous or strangely silent? Read the great blog post solution called ‘Sometimes the weird news is about us…’ They aknowledged what happened and thanked their great employees.

Marketing Monday: Meatless Monday

Every Monday, the Breaking Even blog takes on a business, non-profit, or website with a good marketing idea. Have one? Send it in!

This morning, I was listening to NPR (on the Maine Public Broadcasting Network) and heard about former marketer now turned non-profit marketer Sid Lerner talking about the Meatless Monday concept him and his firm started as a way to get people to eat healthier one day a week. According to the story, 20% of the American population was aware of the term. Personally, I’ve heard about it on a few blogs I read (I do like food) and I was surprised the recognition of the phrase was that low.

Not just a campaign but a website providing useful information and incentives to step out of their comfort zone one night a week.

Meanwhile, it turns out some college campuses have also bought in to the concept but most younger generation folks aren’t going meatless for cholesterol but for the environment. (Which is a big reason why I eat meat only a couple times a week myself. Holy grain acres, Batman!(As a complete aside, you can read a whole nerdy though somewhat slanted article about grain acres here with neato diagram if you are interested.)

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