Corporate Eye

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Susan Gunelius

Susan Gunelius

Domino’s Pizza Hopes to Strike Proverbial Gold with New Contest

dominos-pizza-proverbsThis month, Domino’s Pizza launched a campaign in the United States that asks consumers to submit entries into the Domino’s Pizza Proverbs Contest.  The winning proverbs will be printed on Domino’s Pizza boxes in the future.

The contest is fun in and of itself, but Domino’s, whose brand image has been tainted in recent years, is adding a social media element to the campaign that should spread the Domino’s brand love even further.  Not only can people submit their own proverbs, but they can also share their proverbs and the proverbs they like with a simple mouse click via Twitter and Facebook.

Judging will be based on creativity, originality and proper use of grammar.  However, the biggest miss in this contest is not allowing people to vote for the winner.  The prize is small so within a few days since the contest launched, only 535 proverbs had been submitted.  If this contest had a bigger prize and additional social media elements, it could be huge.

A few of the recently submitted proverbs are particularly favorable for the Domino’s brand image, including, “Beauty is only cheese deep, but true deliciousness comes from within.”  Others are simply entertaining, such as, “To leave the last slice is to be loved. To eat the last slice is to be happy.”

The lesson to learn is this: asking consumers to participate in events, activities, campaigns, and contests that can help to build your brand image is a great idea, but don’t be afraid to take the initiative to the next level of social sharing and interaction.

What do you think?

DoubleVerify Aims to Police the Online Advertising World

DoubleVerify is one of the leading online advertising verification companies in the world.  According to the company’s website, DoubleVerify verifies 35 billion advertising impressions per month for a diverse clientele of leading marketers, including hundreds of Fortune 500 companies.

This week, DoubleVerify announced the launch of its Advertising Fraud Detection Lab with the goal of identifying malicious sites, malware, spyware, and other forms of non-compliance that lead to inflated ad impression reporting.  Unfortunately, these activities are not new and they show no signs of going away.  DoubleVerify aims to reduce the amount of money advertisers pay for wasted ad impressions and the legal implications these fraudulent activities can lead to.

DoubleVerify plans to use its own technology combined with a team of experts from security and anti-virus organizations to research the online advertising environment and present their results after three months in the form of a white paper with the intention of helping online advertisers and legitimate publishers identify fraud risks and ensure brands reputations’ aren’t negatively impacted by potentially fraudulent activities.  You can read more in the official DoubleVerify press release.

Few marketers would argue that there is a problem related to online advertising wasted impressions.  The question is whether or not DoubleVerify’s research and resulting report will help the online advertising industry as a whole or simply create more clients for DoubleVerify’s services.  Certainly, this type of research has the potential to help an industry that has struggled against fraudulent activities in the past without the ability to offer proof of such activities.  Let’s hope that DoubleVerify’s Advertising Fraud Detection Lab offers some sort of help, or better yet — a solution.

What do you think?  Is a fraud detection service that can work across the online advertising industry likely to hit the scene anytime soon?  Leave  a comment and share your thoughts and predictions.

Facebook Asks Users to Share Stories about How Facebook Impacted Their Lives

On July 21, 2010, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg published a post on the Facebook blog that announced the social networking site had officially passed the 500 million global users mark (check out his video message here).

To celebrate, Facebook put together a number of stories about how the site impacted users’ lives.  To take the positive brand images further, Facebook launched an app that will appear on 31 partner sites (including the White House’s Facebook page) that asks Facebook users around the world to share their own stories about how Facebook has affected their lives in positive ways.  The app is called Facebook Stories.


Facebook_stories


This is a clever branding initiative by Facebook that leverages customer testimonials and feel-good messages to present the brand in an extremely positive light.  Following the negative criticism Facebook has faced in recent months related to its lack of privacy with users’ personal information, the Facebook Stories initiative is being launched at the perfect moment.

Having the Facebook Stories app appear in the tabs of 31 partner sites, made up primarily of non-profit organizations like UNICEF and the American Red Cross, is another clever move.

But that’s not all.  Facebook team members will also be hitting the road on a Facebook Stories road trip to visit towns around the United States to meet the people behind the stories.  It’s probably safe to assume that this road trip will lead to a video element for the Facebook Stories initiative, particularly since people can ‘enter’ for a chance to have the Facebook Stories road trip team visit them and learn their story about the impact they made using Facebook.

Will the effort work to restore confidence in the Facebook brand?  That remains to be seen.  It’s unlikely, but it certainly can’t hurt.  What do you think?  Can Facebook Stories have a significant impact on repairing the Facebook brand?

Skype Rolls out Click and Call Advertising for Businesses

skype_marchexSkype has long been known as the site where people can make free online phone calls to anyone at anytime.  Last year, eBay sold the majority share of Skype to a consortium of buyers.  Less than a year later, Skype has partnered with Marchex (an advertising company) to launch a new click and call advertising program.

Here’s how it works:

  1. Businesses sign up for click and call advertising with Skype through Marchex.
  2. Once signed up, advertisers get a blue Free Call button with their listings on various local directory sites (see the image for an example) that consumers are likely to find through keyword searches, such as Yelp.com, YP.com, and more.
  3. A consumer can simply click on the Free Call button in a directory listing where it appears to immediately call the advertiser via Skype.
  4. Advertisers are charged a flat fee per Skype call.
  5. Advertisers can set a pre-determined budget to manage costs, and Marchex provides call analytics reports.

Marchex and Skype are promoting the partnership as a great way for businesses to boost contacts from the 560 million registered Skype users around the world (100 million in the United States).  Check out the video below for more details (or click this link to view it on the Marchex website if you can’t view it below).

The program is still in early stages, and there have been some criticisms because consumers can’t see the Free Call button in some browsers unless they have a specific Skype browser plugin installed.  However, Google offers similar programs in its mobile pay-per-call product and its Google Voice extension for its Chrome browser, which have shown some success, so the expectation is that the Skype program should do well.

It’s an interesting concept that certainly has the chance to attract consumers who are actively looking for information about a specific business or product at the exact moment they need it.  Research shows that leads attracted through click-to-call advertising have the potential to deliver higher conversion rates than other forms of advertising.  I’d imagine we’ll see many retailers testing the Skype program out.  What do you think?

5 Rebranding Mistakes to Avoid No Matter What

Rebranding is hot these days.  It seems like more companies are sending out press releases about their “rebranding” initiatives than ever.  However, many of these rebranding efforts miss the mark despite the huge amounts of money invested in them.

How can your company ensure that your rebranding is successful?  It’s simple.  Avoid the 5 mistakes listed below.

1. Forget a facelift.  A simple nip-tuck will do.

A rebranding takes more than a few tweaks to your logo and slogan, redesigning your signage, and printing new business cards.  A rebranding is an opportunity to re-imagine your story and create a new brand promise that will take your company into the future.  Would you rebrand yourself by simply getting a new pair of shoes or would a complete makeover — physically and emotionally — be required?  The same goes for your business brand.

2. Don’t call in unbiased branding experts to help you.

One of the most common mistakes companies make when it’s time to rebrand is assuming that they have the talent in-house to get the job done.  The job might get done, but it won’t be as good as it could be if you got help from people who live and breathe branding and can cut through the internal debates and hangups to truly roll out the best rebranding effort possible.

3. Involve anyone and everyone in the decision-making process.

When it comes to rebranding, everyone seems to feel like it’s their place to weigh in on the decisions.  Believe it or not, most people don’t have all the facts.  Their opinions should be taken into consideration but those opinions should not rule with an iron fist.

4. Don’t bother doing any research.  Go with your gut.

It’s true that the best branding experts have a sixth sense about branding, but there is more to branding than gut feelings.  You need to be able to formulate strategies and decisions should be based at least partially in fact.  Strike a balance between research and creativity, and you’ve struck marketing gold.

5. Just update the logo and forget about everything else.

Your brand is far more than just a logo.  Rolling out a new logo is not rebranding.  Don’t confuse the two.