AUDIENCE(86)

a Names have been changed to protect the innocent—namely—at family reunion  s.

b A PSA during Super Bowl XLVII for The Wounded Warrior Project (@WWPinc) did just this by asking VIEWERS to text WWP to 50555 to donate $10. As of July 2013, the short code still worked for those wanting to go from READER to DONOR. I donated, and if the short code still works as you read this, so can you.

c Yes, the Doritos Locos Taco was launched with a handshake between the CEOs of Taco Bell and Frito-Lay (@FritoLay), Doritos’ owner. Sometimes, you have to go with your gut and not wait on the lawyers.

d Showrooming is when a consumer enters a brick and mortar store, scans a product to find the best price, and then buys that product elsewhere (usually online).

e Unboxing videos are videos that document CUSTOMERS opening and unpacking new purchases. Haul videos document CUSTOMERS showing everything they bought during a shopping trip.

1. Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters, (New York: W.W. Norton, 1999), 50.

2. ExactTarget, “SUBSCRIBERS, FANS & FOLLOWERS REPORT #16,” p. 16.

3. Michael Olson, “Social Login Trends Across the Web for Q1 2013,” Janrain, April 8, 2013, http://janrain.com/blog/social-login-trends-across-the-web-for-q1-2013/.

4. Bill Piwonka, “How to Leverage Social Login to Boost User Engagement, Website Magazine, June 1, 2013, www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/issues-pro/pages/how-to-leverage-social-login-to-boost-engagement.aspx.

5. Ibid.

6. Jon Correll, “Opt-In Email Newsletter Popup Best Practices for 2012,” ConversionVoodoo, January 2012, www.conversionvoodoo.com/blog/2012/01/opt-in-email-newsletter-popup-best-practices-landing-page-optimization-shoemoney/.

7. Search for “Brooks Brothers” conducted on Sunday, May 27, 2013, via Google. Screen capture is of the first sponsored result from that search.

8. Google Ads, “Search Ads: Ad Extensions.”

9. “eMarketer: Consumers Spending More Time with Mobile as Growth Slows for Time Online,” eMarketer, October 22, 2012, www.emarketer.com/newsroom/index/consumers-spending-time-mobile-growth-time-online-slows/.

10. Brian Stelter, “‘Sharknado’ Tears Up Twitter, if Not the TV Ratings,” The New York Times, July 12, 2013, /www.nytimes.com/2013/07/13/arts/television/sharknado-tears-up-twitter-if-not-the-tv-ratings?_r=0.

11. Al Urbanski, “Avenue Goes Off in a New Mobile Direction,” Direct Marketing News, February 12, 2013, www.dmnews.com/avenue-goes-off-in-a-new-mobile-direction/article/280129/.

12. “US Ahead of Western Europe in QR Code Usage,” eMarketer, January 28, 2013, www.emarketer.com/Article/US-Ahead-of-Western-Europe-QR-Code-Usage/1009631.

13. Austin Carr, “Deep inside Taco Bell’s Doritos Locos Taco,” Fast Company, May 1, 2013, www.fastcompany.com/3008346/deep-inside-taco-bells-doritos-locos-taco.

14. CSD Staff, “Holiday Stationstores and Cub Foods Launch Rewards,” Convenience Store Decisions, September 28, 2012, www.csdecisions.com/2012/09/28/holiday-stationstores-and-cub-foods-launch-rewards/.

15. Ayaz Nanji, “The Impact of Contests on Email Leads,” Marketing Profs, citing research from Incentivibe, May 29, 2013, www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2013/10844/the-impact-of-contests-on-email-leads-infographic.

16. Ashley Parker, “Twitter’s Secret Handshake,” The New York Times, June 10, 2011, www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/fashion/hashtags-a-new-way-for-tweets-cultural-studies.

17. Michael Krebs, “Violent ‘Game of Thrones’ episode is most social in HBO history,” Digital Journal, June 8, 2013, http://digitaljournal.com/article/351818.

18. Tim Nudd, “Jell-O Hijacks Twitter’s Profane #FML Hashtag, Changes It to Mean ‘Fun My Life,’” AdWeek, May 23, 2013, www.adweek.com/adfreak/jell-o-hijacks-twitters-profane-fml-hashtag-changes-it-mean-fun-my-life-149788.





Chapter 24


Serve, Honor, Deliver, Surprise & Delight: The Red Velvet Touch


Get someone else to blow your horn and the sound will carry twice as far.

—Will Rogers

A funny thing happened on the way to writing this chapter. My employer, ExactTarget (@ExactTarget), was acquired by Salesforce.com (@salesforce)— two companies built upon a “customer first” mentality. This caused me to reflect on an initiative we launched back in 2008 called SUBSCRIBERS RULE! The result of a brainstorm with our CMO Tim Kopp (@TBKopp) and two of my whip-smart colleagues, Morgan Stewart (@mostew) and Chip House (@CEHouse), SUBSCRIBERS RULE! expressed our shared belief that permission marketing could be distilled into three tenets: Serve the individual, honor their unique preferences, and deliver them timely, relevant content that makes their lives better.

We had the idea to represent the entire initiative with a single image: the sign language symbol for love, which musical FANS also display proudly while shouting “Rock on!” at concerts. This love/rock duality hammered home the point that is our job as marketers to both serve and celebrate consumers—for it is their permission that fuels much of the most effective marketing today. The SUBSCRIBERS RULE! initiative culminated in the distribution of thousands of orange, foam hands shaped like the SR! logo. (See Figure 24.1.) In fact, if you walk the halls of ExactTarget today or check out our Instagram page, you’ll see more than a few of our EMPLOYEES, CLIENTS, and PARNTERS proudly displaying their SR! foam hands.