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Learn current creative marketing with two tips from Swedish ICA

September 30, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Today people have other habits then they used to have, especially the small daily stuff is changing. With new tools and technology we do things differently, have you adapted your marketing campaign to that? The Swedish food store ICA surely has and here is a great example from this summer:

ica-reklam

Take a photo of the ad with your phone camera or any other device you may carry!

This probably does not make too much sense for you since it’s in Swedish, so let me explain. The headline says “For a successful crayfish party, take a picture of the recipe below.” Not only does it have great timing with the season for crayfish, but they have played on the fact that most people in Sweden have a cell phone with a camera with them all the time, and thus they can easily take a photo of the ad and leave their recipe worries behind.

I love this idea because it is simple yet productive and it makes you think, what a great idea, who came up with that? And once again ICA is in your thoughts.

Another ICA idea that has been running for quite some time now is the ICA TV-Series look-a-like commercial. Every week they show a 30 sec episode reputedly during the tv-commercials where they promote the week’s special offers.

Here is an example but unfortunately I could only find them in Swedish:

It might be difficult to understand the charm of the series if you cannot understand the language. However, think of it as another TV-show with characters a plot maybe without the cliffhanger but you still want some more. The shows probably made people pay more attention to the ICA commercial because of the creative and non-boring way to market. Perhaps a few people even sat through the commercials, which they usually zap.

People have even started a facebook group to show their support:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=54895982228&ref=search&sid=719435876.2371695270..1

And on ICA’s website you can see the episodes you missed:
http://www.ica.se/FrontServlet?s=butiker&state=reklamfilmer_ny&showMenu=butiker_3

There are still a lot of things that could be improved with ICA’s marketing that still feels old and not as current as these two examples. However these two examples show that they are one of the most creative firms on marketing in Sweden and I would for sure like to work for them!

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Make sure that you can receive comments!

September 28, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Today I applied for a Visa for an upcoming trip to Russia. The trip was decided on pretty short notice and I was already pretty late with my application when I found out that I needed a special paper from my insurance company. So I called them in a hurry and asked them for help and the woman I talked to was very nice and she managed to get me the papers I needed on time.

So today, just a few minutes ago, I decided to send the insurance company a thank you email, endorsing the service from this woman. Only I could not find anywhere to send it.

On the website I found emails for both insurance claims and for technical issues, but not one general email. So now there is no way that I will be able to say thank you to this woman and complement her for her job skills, and I find that very sad.

Everyone deserves to get credit when they do something good, and as an employer how are you supposed to know who to promote if you don’t know who is doing a good job?

Thus, to all of you who read this, make sure that there is some way that your costumers can contact you, because they may want to do that!

Mashable recently post that can help you HOW TO: Gather Feedback with Social Media

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The small things that make a difference

September 25, 2009 By 2 Comments

Skärmklipp

Once in awhile you found these small details on stuff you buy that make you happy, because you realize that someone thought one step longer. A few days back I found one of those things, and the best thing about it was that it only was a tiny addition to the packaging. Still it made a huge difference.

So I usually bleach my hair, but I felt for a change and decided to color it instead. Since I’m a student and short of cash as usual, I decided to go for the make-it-at-home-kit! My friend was with me when I went into a store and began looking trough the shelves for the color I had in mind, and we actually found one that I really liked. On the way to the checkout counter I said to my friend that I had to remember to cut out a piece from the packaging to save if I am going to color it again, so I’m sure that I get the right color.

When it was finally time to start the coloring and I opened the package, they have actually made one of those sides when you open it into a “color-reminder” that you just cut off. It has the name and a picture of the color and is super easy to cut off. Perfect for me, who by then had forgot about cutting a piece out and was only focused on the coloring.

This is just one example of how small things make a difference. What can you add or change to your product or packaging that will make people think that yours is a little bit better?

I found this interesting post about how the feel of packaging can make it all wrong at Limequat’s blog <- Check it out!

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What do you put your name on?

September 22, 2009 By Leave a Comment

First of all, to most of you this post does not contain any news. It’s a reminder to some of you and a tip to a few others, that sometimes you hurt yourself by being nice to other.

So a few days back an administrator from my education program emailed me asking if I could be a reference to their program. They provide education abroad and the principal from the school in the US had recommended that she talked to me. Since I liked the program and learned a lot, I was about to agree. When I began thinking about the consequences.

If I agreed on this, I would put my name on this organization and if people liked them I could perhaps benefit from it, but if they did not, it could hurt my reputation a lot more.

To make a long story short the organization in question had sent us some pretty questionable bills, which if I looked in deeper could be illegal and also they very also deceitful about the arrangements. Knowing this you might wonder why I even consider putting my name on it? The answer to that is that I would not have been talking about this organization but about the school in the US.

But since the words I said would be in the organization’s marketing, people might think that I was recommending the whole organization and not just the school. After all, marketing is so much more than the words you read.

Therefore I decided to decline the offer and emailed both the administration at the organization and the principal. When I got the returns I realize even more I good my choice were.

The principal emailed me and told me that it was a smart decision to not put my name on something I don’t believe in, which is completely true.

However the organizations respond was something like:  I’m sorry to hear that you feel that way; could you please write and tell us about what we can get better at? We always want to improve.

Now I don’t remember for sure if they gave us a survey after the program was over, because we had a lot of things going on in the end of school. But I know that if they did, I would have taken the time to answer it thoroughly because I think it’s important to learn and get better. And in that case she would have known what they should be working on.

However, if they did not and they want to improve they should not ask me how now. Even if I would take the time and write down what I find questionable it does not feel like they would read it and consider it. If they want to know, show people that by handing them a survey, at least then you seem to want the answers.

I’m not saying that you should not be nice, and that you should not help others. But you have to think about the consequences. If I would have agreed to be a reference, I would probably have got a “thank you email” and their day would have been easier, but next year I might have lost my trust because they got sued for fraud?

What’s the price for not being able to say no?

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2 examples of why each connection counts

September 6, 2009 By Leave a Comment

A few weeks back when I was going to back to Belgium I experienced two interesting situation that in modern networking that I wanted to write about. The first was while I was pulling my bags up the hill from my friend’s apartment to the metro. I was on my way back home after a four week vacation and had my luggage filled with both winter clothes and literature, so they were anything but light. I had not gotten far, when a young girl offered to help me. Obviously I needed help, so I accepted. As it turns out this young girl also worked as an au-pair but in Sweden. She was German and had learned Swedish really well during her year-long stay. We continued talking and did so for about 20 minutes or so, managing to find out quite a few details about each other. Before we parted ways we changed contact details in hope to stay in touch, an all of this happened before 5.30 in the morning.

During a layover in Mϋnchen I overheard two men speak, and as it turned out they did not know each other but just randomly began talking on the bus to the aircraft. The initiator of the conversation was an older American man. And the guy he started talking with was a younger student going on a study -abroad program, who wasn’t late to make it into a longer conversation. I don’t know if they decided to stay connected, but the situations are still interesting.

Both situations where less than half hour long and took place while being “on-the-way.” If there two guys would have meet 10 years back, they would have exchanged numbers and perhaps email, as would the German girl and I. But the chances of us keeping in touch over the phone would have been very spars and trough email it might just have lasted a couple of months. Then the situations would have been forgotten, and we would probably never have met again. Maybe in rare cases people did keep contact but very seldom and usually because the relationship had some kind of unique exchange, perhaps a special interest or so.

Today we have Facebook and other social networks, so of course the girl and I took each other’s full name and connected though the online network. We have emailed since then and will likely stay connected in the future. She is now back in Germany and perhaps I will go met her there one day? Perhaps the two men also connected through a social network, maybe LinkedIn or another, he young man will one day intern at the older man’s job, this is just speculations but it is still interesting.

Trough social network, you are connected without having constant interaction, if I don’t email the German girl every months I will still be updated with what she does and thus contact her once in awhile to stay connected. And because of that years can go by and we will still stay connected, even though we only met on the way to the metro for 20 minutes.

Today it does not matter where or when you meet or for how long, each meting can become a lifetime friendship. Therefore I encourage people to make sure to leave an opening for a reconnected even though you only met once. It is especially important for young people who have trouble finding jobs etc.  Who knows what the lady who you gave your seat on the bus than help you with, if you don’t ask?

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