Membership has it’s rewards! So they say…Marriott loyalty reward gone wrong!

Membership has it’s rewards! So they say…Marriott loyalty reward gone wrong!

by | Aug 24, 2009 | Humor, Marketing with Web 2, 3 or 4.0

This Saturday evening I checked into my hotel and came back to my car sporting a shiny gift for being a Silver member rewards member. When I showed it to my 7 and 9 year old they LOL laughed out loud. What was the gift? A bottled water with a ribbon and thank you note attached. The kids and adults in the car could not stop laughing…saying things like “that is a gift?” and “why bother?”

Certainly there are better things to give a guest like setting up my sofa bed? After all they knew that I was in an efficiency with 4 people and only one bed? Maybe the manager is not that empowered. Maybe they should read about the Fred Factor http://www.fredfactor.com/ or anything customer service related 🙂

Marriott would have been better off NOT handing out a gift at all. If the gift has no prestige or value then it is better to just say thank you and move on.
At least we got a good chuckle at their expense.

bottledwater.jpg

Spongebob is an $8 billion franchise? and he is only 10

by | Jul 27, 2009 | Humor, Marketing with Web 2, 3 or 4.0

Interesting article in Advertising Age on Spongebob’s wide appeal. Here are some juicy tidbits directly from the article:
        $8 billion- Total retail sales of Spongebob products globally each year
        $813 million – total measured ad spending “SpongeBob” logged at Nickelodeon from 2004-2008, according to TNS Media Intelligence        76 million – number of people watch “SpongeBob” at some point every quarter
        700 – Number of SpongeBob license partners WW
        16 million – number of people who have visited spongeBob.com since it launched in January 2009, according to Omniture
        10 – number of states wher Burger King franchises reported “Spongenappings” or stolen SpongeBob inflatables
        3500 – Number of Walmart stores featuring storefront SpongeBob merchandise in a March promotion

Article supports why my wife and I enjoy SpongeBob just as much as the kids…and my college age nephew! Success can be attributed to SpongeBob’s
wide appeal across all generations. Try watching and you will be hooked too.

if you subscribe: http://adage.com/abstract.php?article_id=137866 AdAge.com

Hulu taking a bite out of Apple or Google or Microsoft

by | May 7, 2009 | Humor, Social Networking

Not sure how you win taking on those three jugarnauts but Hulu is doing pretty well. Not to mention taking on the cable companies too.
I like Hulu as a business model but they need to figure out the Hulu to DVR piece before they really get them.

I predict that Cisco will buy them…they already own the biggest provider of DVRs in the world. Go-to-my TV may be on the way!

Here is the article that sparked this rant.
Disney Joins NBC, News Corp. as Owners of Hulu

May 6, 2009
Response This Week

LOS ANGELES – Hulu and ABC Enterprises Inc.’s The Walt Disney Co. agreed to join NBC Universal, News Corp. and Providence Equity Partners as partners in ownership of Hulu, an online aggregator of video content. Disney’s most popular current and library primetime series and feature films will now be a part of Hulu’s programming lineup, on an ad-supported basis.
Click here for full article

Now I have seen it all…a Social Networking gift card!

by | Apr 16, 2008 | Humor, Marketing with Web 2, 3 or 4.0

Now I have seen it all…a Social Networking gift card!But actually it is a great idea for the gift card company…imagine the possiblities.It would be great to give b-day, get-well, and other gifts from inside your Facebookworld? Here is an excerpt or click here for the full story.Ideaedge, Inc., a developer of prepaid gift card programs, is expanding itsofferings using social networks to encourage groups of people to contributeto one gift card.The platform, called the Social Network Enabled Gift Card, will allowmultiple people to contribute to a group gift card. The application willlet people choose a card and create a list of friends from social networks,such as MySpace.com, to donate toward the card amount.Wonder how I apply this to enterprise software marketing. any ideas?