Re-Branding Boston: new alliance seeks to blunt the “brain drain” exodus

Boston-base streetwear company Karmaloop is taking on the city with its new venture, a non-profit organization called the Future Boston Alliance that essentially seeks to re-brand Boston to better live up to its reputation as a cultural and intellectual hub.

As  an advocate for progressive and cultural growth of the city, their goal is to invigorate the local creative economy, making the city more attractive for creative young people to start small businesses and convincing college students to stay in Boston after graduation. Greg Selkoe, Karmaloop’s chief executive, says Boston’s reputation as a “cold and conservative” city has got to go. He feels that if things don’t change, the city will continue to lose more creative talent to New York.

In their manifesto, Future Boston’s Selkoe states that the city has “failed to help nurture young creative talent in Boston and if anything created a hostile environment where ideas and creativity must struggle to flourish”. The brain drain is a common trend, where creative people end up leaving the city early in their careers because they lack the support or creative network they need to be successful. But that’s where Future Boston will step in. They will be there to counteract the current archaic environment and, where possible, change it. Apparently that change starts with conservative rules and regulations for restaurants and services throughout the city.

Bostonians know there isn’t much to do or eat after 2:00am and Selkoe sees that as a major drawback, reasoning “If Boston isn’t any fun, and there aren’t a lot of creative things happening here, that’s very bad for the entrepreneurial environment.’’  Sure, it’s sometimes frustrating that you can’t always grab a slice at three or four in the morning, but is it really preventing young talent from staying in Boston? Do we really just assume that all musicians, designers, and artists stay up until 6:00am in a 24-hour diner in Back Bay creating their masterpieces?

Of course that isn’t the only plan of action for Future Boston, but being in a creative field myself, I hope they can narrow the focus of their rebranding strategy. In repositioning Boston as a “creative friendly” atmosphere, we hope the organization looks not only at ways of supporting creatives’ lifestyles, but to support their goals and promote growth in those industries.  In repositioning a client’s brand, one of the fundamental ingredients is evaluating if the new position is believable….will people really see Boston as the creative hub that Selkoe dreams of? I suppose anything is possible but, as with all clients, it’s essential to put away our own agendas and focus solely on what’s best for Boston.

Digital Innovation is ‘Bruin’ in the NHL

If you missed the launch of the Boston Bruins Digital Entertainment Network (DEN) last week, it’s time to come out of hibernation. The Bruins Bear is back, topping his own fan etiquette campaign from last seasonwith his new series of shorts called, “The Bear and the Gang”. But this 1980’s style sitcom is just one of the many hilariously funny features showcased on the NHL.com “portal”, The Bruins DEN.

The Bruins DEN is the organization’s effort to consolidate their digital and social content under one umbrella. Through this network, fans can connect to the Bruins through many avenues of social media including Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Pinterest. Fans can also upload their favorite Bruins fan photos via Instagram, view the “The Bear and the Gang”, and compete in the Bruins Fantasy Challenge, all from one centralized location. The most significant feature of the Bruins DEN is its new mobile app, which has been made available on the iPhone, Android, and Blackberry.

While the Bruins DEN website provide an easily accessible venue for all things Bruins, the app does all that and more. Fans can view team stats, get updates on current games, and even purchase tickets on the fly. This initiative is truly innovative for professional sports teams, both providing valuable content for fans and also creating new, more effective opportunities for sponsors. “Our fans are on the receiving end of great content that is accessible through all of the digital channels that they use and is distributed in a streamlined, organized fashion,” says Amy Latimer, Bruins Senior VP of Marketing and Sales. “Our corporate partners now have the ability to reach more than 2.5 million unique Bruins fans per month while aligning their brand with compelling content in a manner that is fan friendly.”

In our humble opinion, this umbrella is a clear indication that the Bruins understand their audience. Sports teams don’t always have a specific following, where they can narrow down exactly who sits in the stands or watches on television. Most likely, team fans are all different ages, ethnicities, classes, and personalities. The Bruins seem to recognize that some of their fans prefer to just read stats, while others want to post photos of their friends all wearing Bruins gear in Montreal. Each of their fans prefers to connect to the brand/team in a different way, and fortunately the Bruins DEN is just a more accessible way to do so. Let’s see how many teams follow their lead and what success this will bring to sponsors, as well as the team. Perhaps the unified support will bring the black and gold another….. well let’s just wait and see!

My beer runneth over: Sam Adams in a Marathon partnership?

Legalized hookie-playing, public drinking, and incessant screaming at complete strangers; only in Boston. Monday April 16^th 2012, also known as Patriot’s Day here in Boston, is a historic holiday commemorating the battles of Lexington and Concord – but more famously, it plays host to the 116^th annual Boston Marathon. And amongst the large majority of twenty-somethings living in Boston, this sacred day is known as Marathon Monday, which mixes equal parts lining Beacon Street to cheer  marathon runners (extra shout-outs to the most outrageous costumes) and a day-long marathon of drinking.

This year, Samuel Adams is tapping into Marathon Monday by partnering with the Boston Athletic Association (BAA) to unveil its new Samuel Adams Boston 26.2 Brew for the 2012 race. According to the Boston Herald, the beer will have less alcohol and a lighter body compared to other Samuel Adams products and will be on tap exclusively at marathon-related events and pubs along the race route in Boston. For local brands like Sam Adams, the traditions of April 16^th are a great opportunity for promotions, but how does the Boston Athletic Association benefit from this partnership?

Marketing partnerships, if well-executed, can be very beneficial in boosting a company’s recognition and profits. With each company bringing their own brand equity to the table, an alliance can help each party acquire new customers and users in previously untapped channels and venues. However, choosing a partnership should be a careful and thoughtful process. Participating companies must share similar goals, levels of service, and quality to achieve positive results on both sides — otherwise the connection will be confusing in the eyes of customers.

The Boston Athletic Association may be entering this territory through its partnership with Samuel Adams.

The mission of the BAA is to promote a healthy lifestyle through sports…And beer marathons are not often associated with what most people consider to be a healthy lifestyle! It seems the benefits in this case will be heavily weighted in favor of Samuel Adams which as a result of the partnership, has the right to use the “Boston 26.2” name on the new bottle.  The beer branding provides a direct connection to the social activities of race day which, let’s face it, receives many more participants than the actual race.

The paid content experiment: how newspapers are holding on

With more and more free information constantly available at our fingertips, it’s becoming less necessary to pay for it.  Newspapers with plummeting print subscriptions have responded by launching subscription-based websites that put much of their content behind a paywall. Papers are creating cleaner, simplistic sites to enhance the loyal readers’ experience with the online publication. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and others have already seen success with this paid content experiment.

Now the Boston Globe has jumped on board. One week ago, the Globe launched BostonGlobe.com, an online version of the newspaper that will require readers to subscribe for a fee of $3.99 per week for non-Boston Globe subscribers and free for current print subscribers. This new “paid” website is not to be confused with Boston.com, a free site available to the general public. In fact, The Boston Globe has taken this opportunity to enhance this free site as well, recognizing that each product has two distinct audiences.

Boston.com is much more of an open forum that allows participation and conversation and remains much more local. In contrast, BostonGlobe.com will lend itself more to the avid newspaper reader. “BostonGlobe.com will also offer a cleaner reading experience, without the homepage takeovers or pop-ups used on the free Boston.com.” With this change there is an obvious concern among advertisers — however there is a great opportunity here that was somewhat unavailable with the free website.

With the “paid” website subscription, the BostonGlobe.com will be able to capture a more in-depth picture of their readers.  Information such as household income, level of education, and reading habits can all be tracked, giving advertisers a greater opportunity to target their audience more accurately.  Not to mention, the promise to offer fewer ads to their readers means advertisers are given the opportunity to appeal to readers in a less cluttered atmosphere.  This will certainly overcome the objections that advertisers have with Boston.com about its tendency to over crowd the site with advertising.

Advertising aside, the hidden agenda seems to be to find a strategy to hold paid print subscribers from jumping ship.  Even though Apple claims that no online newspaper should be given away as a free subscription, something tells me that this may at least hold print subscriptions for the meantime.  Time will tell.

Practice makes perfect: managing your online reputation

Just a few years ago, managing my reputation meant making sure I was always looking good and not getting on anyone’s bad side. I knew what others thought of me through gossip, or face-to-face interactions and that was about it. Today, reputation management has taken on a much more significant role not just in personal relationships but in business relationships as well. The root of this growth is due mostly to websites in which customers can post reviews of people, businesses, or services, called review sites. More and more of these websites are popping up online every day and they are quickly becoming a serious concern for business owners.

The issue with these review sites is that businesses cannot “directly” manage the reviews that are submitted to their company pages. What many are saying is that they would like to delete the negative reviews on these pages because they feel that those will tarnish their reputation. However with the nature of the sites being free for all, only explicit or inappropriate comments are able to be deleted. Having attended seminars about reputation management and through personal research on the topic, the overall consensus is that there are two effective strategies for businesses to alleviate this concern.

First, they must encourage happy customers to submit reviews on these sites so that the negative reviews are pushed further down the page. This leaves the newer positive comments residing at the top of search results. The more positive reviews existing on the page, the less significance the negative reviews will have in new customers’ minds. Although the comments of unhappy customers will certainly cause a bit of stress, businesses must embrace the fact that those comments actually make the page appear more legitimate. Consumers have been using the internet long enough to know that there is always one disgruntled customer almost everywhere you go. With that knowledge they tend to distrust sites that are cluttered with sparkling reviews.   

Second, the best way to really maintain a positive online reputation is to respond to the complaints on the review site. There, businesses can offer an explanation for the complaint, offer this person a discount or free service, while also clearly making an effort to establish a close relationship with customers. So in a way, these complaints are actually providing a medium for discussion and giving the business a voice if they choose to participate. It is strongly encouraged to always address complaints in order to set the record straight for any new customers reading these reviews.

Although opening up to the public online may be a scary idea to most businesses, it can be a very positive asset for maintaining a positive reputation. In short, capitalizing on the happy customers and offering explanations or consolation services to those unhappy with your business are the two key strategies for maintaining a positive online reputation. It may be a difficult concept to grasp, but all reviews, whether good or bad, can only benefit in the long run if they are dealt with properly.

Always have your victory dance ready

Hockey Fever is in full effect in Massachusetts. The Boston Bruins are just one game away from winning their first Stanley Cup since 1972 and Boston fans could not be more excited for this historic event [Editor’s Note: in case you missed it…they won]. It is my pleasure to write about two loves in my life; The Boston Bruins and Advertising.

Since moving to Boston five years ago, I have increasingly become a bigger, crazier, and best of all more loyal fan to the Bruins. I owe part of that to their incredibly hilarious and also truthful advertising campaign, The Bruins Hockey Rules. The campaign includes a series of posters and billboards across Boston and television commercials that outline what not to do as a fan of Bruins hockey. The rules include proper TD Garden etiquette with “Never leave early to beat traffic;” wardrobe directions such as “Never tuck in your Bruins jersey;” and best of all, a true lesson to live by, “Never date within the division.” These pointers may seem simple and totally obvious to fans, but on a broader scale the reason we love this campaign is because it takes us back to Advertising 101.

If you’re a Bruins fan, a Canucks fan or you don’t follow sports much at all this campaign still connects with you in some way. We’ve all experienced incidents such as these at one point or another. “You fall for someone, discover something about them that could cause friction with friends and family, and then decide to hang in there for superficial reasons. Until a giant bear knocks the beer out of your hands.” And isn’t that just a basic principle of advertising? You must connect with your audience, making your brand resonate in their daily lives. With this campaign, the Boston Bruins have shot the basics out of the rink. They walked through the market in the shoes of their customers, learned what plagued them the most, and ultimately identified a solution; the Bruins Hockey Rules.

So if you take anything from this other than a prompt to YouTube the Bruins Hockey Rules, take with you the value of getting back to basics. I see highly creative, artistic work every day in every type of media and half of the time it’s so out there I’m not even sure what their selling. If you connect with your audience, spend some time in their shoes, and deliver a solution to a common need you are sure to see positive results. And it can be as simple as that.  In closing, I put it to you Bruins fans, to pray the Bruins get back to basics: Pass, Shoot, and Score… a lot! And of course, “always have your victory dance ready.” 

A new brew for an old brand – Heineken shakes things up

In the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day, an article on AdAge.com about a popular beer brand caught my eye. Heineken USA is beginning a new marketing initiative to seek new customers and increase their sales. They plan to ‘think outside the bottle’ and pour more money into making Heineken draft available at a greater number of bars and restaurants, instead of appearing almost always in bottles. The new initiative will include print, billboard, and digital ads focusing on Heineken draft to tap into the consumer drive for premium beers.

This drive to increase business got me thinking about brand loyalty – in my opinion, one of the most fascinating aspects of advertising and marketing. Brand loyalty plainly means the consumer’s commitment to repurchase or continually use a brand. Consumers have a multitude of reasons for why they purchase the brands that they do. It can be anything from the price to the mere fact that Mom and Dad used it during their childhood.

Advertisers looking for a touchdown in 2011

After the devastating loss for us New England fans this past weekend, it hardly seems right to talk about the Super Bowl – but in the advertising world, it is a hot topic every year.  AdAge reported last year’s game contained 48 minutes worth of ads and network promotions, and with GM and Pepsi coming back from a two year Super Bowl hiatus, we could see more advertising than ever before on February 6^th.

Not only are those major brands back in the mix, but BMW is also returning after ten years, as well as CareerBuilder after five, and they are both going full force. According to BMW’s mar-comm manager, “BMW is in the window of our biggest launch period in history and the Super Bowl gives us the stage to make that big impact.” Not only is BMW looking for a touchdown with this top dollar buy, but Best Buy and Pizza Hut are this year’s rookies, both advertising during the game for the first time.

So what does all of this mean? Well, it means things are looking up. We are no longer hearing about the huge Super Bowl advertising cuts and we can once again look forward to our favorite brands stepping it up for the big game. Of course, we cannot all afford to buy Super Bowl advertising, but I take this as a sign of good things to come in 2011. So for now, we’ll watch and take note for 2012 — when clients air the game’s final commercial for excited fans before Tom Brady throws the game winning touchdown.

Social media means new tools and new dollars for Cyber Monday advertisers

After the door busting Black Friday deals and the specials mom and pop offered on Small Business Saturday, Americans went back to work on Monday morning and did what we do best: kept right on shopping.

Cyber Monday – that is, the Monday following Thanksgiving – is one of the biggest online shopping days of the year. According to the New York Times, the moniker “grew out of the observation that millions of otherwise productive working Americans, fresh off a Thanksgiving weekend of window shopping, were returning to high-speed Internet connections at work Monday and buying what they liked.”

This year, despite the economic downturn, Cyber Monday sales increased 20% over 2009 levels .  Shoppers not only seem to be more willing to spend this holiday season, but they also want spend online.  With a positive glimmer amidst still difficult economic numbers, you better believe that advertisers sought to reap the benefits.

Fueled by Cyber Monday fantasies, 9 out of ten retailers posted online sales, up from 7 out of ten in the past several years.  To advertise their sales, many targeted Facebook and Twitter users writing about holiday shopping.

On Twitter, followers of Best Buy learned about Cyber Monday deals, discounts, specials, and shopping updates through tweets posted throughout the day.  HUDSON Jeans hosted a 24-hour long sale event for VIP Facebook fans – otherwise known as everyone who ‘likes’ their Facebook page – to receive 40% off select HUDSON jeans. These are just two of the ways retailers used social media this year to increase their Cyber Monday sales, but the possibilities and the examples are as varied as the merchants themselves.

As the revenue numbers rise, it is becoming evident that there is an increasing benefit to marketing through social media venues with time-limited call to action campaigns.  At a minimum, the marketer may be able to affect a response by getting a consumer to ‘friend’ a brand and or register to take advantage of a special offer. This may or may not lead immediately to a direct response, but it could provide the marketer with “opt in” contact information and an interested subscriber for future announcements and promotions.

The advertising industry standard has traditionally been “broad,” as in broadcasting.  The goal has been to cover as many people in a demographic or geographic area as possible, and hope your message reaches the right audience and affects a desired reaction.

By effective use of direct marketing through social media, and perhaps giving them a way via online sales events to act on the promotion, we can see a paradigm shift away from “broad” or mass marketing to targeted, intelligent campaigns.

Instead of advertising to everyone, you can promote to people who have signed on to follow a promotion or brand.  By doing so, they qualified themselves as strong potential customers and publicly announced themselves as such by agreeing to follow a social media campaign or account.

While for consumer brands it won’t entirely eliminate the traditional venues of advertising such as television, radio, print, and out of home, an effective and coordinated social media plan should to be considered a part of any well designed advertising and communications strategy.