05.Jun.2009 Creativity in Marketing

The first thing I do after I start my computer at work is checking my email. I guess that is what almost everybody does, when they come to work. I received a lot of emails today, but not nearly as many as spam mails. They don’t really bother me anymore, because they get redirected into my spam folder and deleted after a while, but I can not stop to wonder why people still send those. On eMarketer online I got to know, that “The MessageLabs reported a 5.1% spike in spam over the past month. In May, a whopping 90.4% of worldwide e-mail traffic was spam.”

This surprised me, because I don’t consider spam an effective Marketing tool, let alone creative. In my opinion you need a high degree of creativity when mapping out an online marketing strategy. I am not saying that creativity is not always important, but I consider it more crucial online.

For example, when I surf the web I am focused on what I search for. Time is money right? That’s the reason why an online advertisement has to have a good eye-catcher to make me look at it and after that it needs “je ne sais quoi“, something really appealing, to prevent me from looking away again.

After all it’s not like I am sitting in my car in a traffic jam and stare at an advertisement along side the road or something. Online the opportunity to be on a more entertaining website in one click is omnipresent. My choice for entertainment is often YouTube.

So during lunch break today, while eating some noodles (牛肉汤面) I was researching on YouTube. It’s not only for people who want to see someone fall off of his bike or skate board or from a tree …, it can also be a tool for marketing, as long as you are creative enough to find an unusual approach. That’s what Gillette pulled off with videos explaining “How to shave your XY”

It is not only attracting a male audience, that is interested in how to shave whatever part of their body. The content, which has different aspects to it (funny, educational, advertising…) animates people to comment on it. From “Even retards are LOL’ing at the stupidity of this.” over “Real women like real men with chest hair” to questions like „ wouldn’t the hair grow up more coarse? :S”. I believe that people who leave comments, bad or good, at least process the content and by that will get ‘closer’ to the brand.

Creativeness has its benefits. So the German MarkenAward just announced the Best new brand 2009: Landlust. A magazine, which according to the jury “hits the nerv”.

“Landleben” life on the countryside, is what the magazine focuses on. A lifestyle very desirable to stressed businessmen and women. No wonder that their sales especially flourishes in urban areas. “Landlust” was founded in 2005, and tries to set itself apart by carefully written articles, avoiding posed pictures and an eye to detail. By selling the desire for idleness in a romantic house surrounded by nature, they became market leader in the segment of gardening magazines in Germany.

Now it’s almost dinner time and I am thinking about creative marketing strategies myself. I especially recognize Facebook’s potential for innovative marketing methods, with its variety of applications. Companies could create quizzes like “How much do you know about the CNN program?” or let members pick their “Top 5 BMW models”. Gathering information on the one hand and increasing their market penetration on the other.

I just logged on FB and once again realized that I am too slow for the world wide web:

ad / application by TNT on facebook