Orange Envelopes | Small Business Optimized Marketing > By Design

The Masters golf tournament is unique in many ways – one of them being their restriction on advertising during their televised event. While most golf tournaments show 16 minutes of commercials per hour, The Masters limits the amount of commercials to four minutes per hour.

This imposed limitation makes each minute of available commercial time more valuable, and actually makes the viewer notice the commercials more because of their rarity.

As a Masters junkie, I kept the tournament on my tv during the entire event, even while working. I just muted the sound so each cheer wasn’t a distraction, and glanced at the screen intermittently to monitor the leaderboard.

Because I watched much of the tournament with the sound off, I was struck by the effectiveness of IBM’s visual design cues that they integrate into every one of their commercials. Even with the sound off, I knew instantly when an IBM commercial was on simply by the consistency of their design cues.

A visit to Youtube confirms that every IBM commercial is bounded by an IBM blue letterbox border above and below the displayed video. This simple visual cue immediately conveys to the viewer that the commercial was created by IBM.

Even if the viewer is not actively paying attention to the commercial, IBM gains another imprint, another touchpoint, that reinforces their presence, increases awareness and strengthens their brand.

This video repetition is a simple design device that should be emulated by small business and by individuals trying to strengthen their own personal brand. What visual cues can you employ that differentiate your message and reinforce your brand image? It can be color, logo, wardrobe choice, tagline, message – as long as it’s authentic, it’s memorable, and it’s all yours.

Then start integrating those visual cues in everything you do online: email signatures, Twitter avatar, blog and website design, personal and corporate letterhead, business cards, social media profile pages – every visual touchpoint that allow you to make and reinforce your brand image.

Golfers recognize the true start of the golf season begins with April’s Masters tournament in Augusta, Georgia. Played on a course designed by golf legend Bobby Jones, and reverentially referred to as a golfing cathedral, the Masters is the only major golf tournament that never changes venue, and is recognized as the preeminent tournament in the sport.

In recent years, the tournament has attracted media scrutiny for its refusal to accept female members, and the club is perceived by many to be a southern-fried, racist and misogynistic old boys club.

However, contrary to the preconceived notion of many that the tournament is too backwards and buttoned-down, The Masters has executed a thorough and brilliant online marketing strategy that reinforces their position as the most highly regarded event in golf.

Identity
Their branding effort begins with the single most recognizable logo in golf.  The brilliant yellow map of the USA with a single red flag waving from a stick, sitting atop a deep green background is immediately recognizable, and the tournament owns those colors and that distinctive design. Quick… try to think of another golf tournament’s logo. Other than the image of the British Open’s claret jug, few have any significant recognition factor, and none approach the instant identification of The Masters’.

The Masters brands everything they do with their distinctive logo. Their website resonates with deep green and yellow and their logo is incorporated throughout the site. Land on any page, and there’s no question that you’re visting The Masters.

Maintain Exclusivity
It’s estimated that The Masters sells more golf paraphernalia during their tournament than any other pro event. Hats, shirts, jackets, umbrellas and golf balls, all emblazoned with The Masters’ logo are grabbed up by eager fans who know that the on-course shop is the only place these items are sold. Ever. There is no online shop. There is no Masters outlet store. You want a Masters baseball cap? Get a ticket and get in line.

Their exclusivity is enhanced also by their refusal to allow more than four minutes of advertising during each hour of their telecasts. Most tournaments allow 16 minutes of commercials. This restriction makes each minute of advertising even more valuable and precious for the advertiser that wants to reach this exclusive audience.

Leverage Technology
Few people would believe that The Masters is the most technologically advanced golf tournament in the world. They have provided live webcasts for years. They have a Live Scoreboard to keep on your desktop for instant scoring updates. This year they released an iPhone app to provide live scoring and live video of select holes, including the famous Amen Corner. Don’t have an iPhone? They designed a mobile device enabled site just for you.

On Twitter? Follow @The_Masters for tournament and scoring updates. Not Twitterfied yet? The Masters will send text messages to your phone with scoring and player updates that you select.

Want to chat with other rabid fans? Join the online Masters Community.

Sitting at your desk in front of your PC? Fire up the Live video feeds of Amen Corner and Holes 15 and 16. Follow the action with high definition full screen video.

Surprise and Delight
The Masters displays a phenomenal aptitude for anticipating the desires of their rabid fans for tournament updates, information and involvement. Few would expect this southern golf institution to be technologically proficient, so when they deliver half a dozen ways to leverage technology to deliver tournament news to fans, they cement their status as the leading golf tournament in the world.

And they’ve raised the bar for golf’s other majors to deliver similar levels of fan satisfaction.

I carry a newspaper in my pocket at virtually all times. Actually I carry hundreds of them. All resident as flowing electrons on the screen of my iPhone. This scares the hell out of the major newspaper companies. And it should.

News stories abound detailing the assorted turmoils afflicting the newspaper industry. Major city papers have already ceased operations, and even the most revered journalistic icons, the New York Times and the Boston Globe, are hemorrhaging cash and are trying desperately to execute a corporate strategy that reverses their current death spiral.

Redefining The News
The major newspapers are in serious trouble because they are not really in the news business, they are in the printed news delivery business. Everything they do, every corporate strategy they envision, revolves around newsprint and its physical distribution.

They have hundreds of millions of dollars invested in huge physical plants, enormous high-speed printing presses, fleets of delivery trucks and an enormous, largely unionized, labor force all devoted to delivering a mass of newsprint to an audience whose demand for printed news has declined precipitously.

News As Advertising Vehicle
It’s not just the demand for printed news that has diminished. It’s the demand for printed advertising, the source of all the newspaper’s revenue.

Craigslist, the free online ad service, single handedly destroyed the newspaper’s classified advertising, which provided about 40% of their total revenue. In the Bay Area alone, area newspapers lost more than $50-65 million a year in help wanted advertising and untold millions more in merchandise and real estate advertising.

Local businesses have discovered that most consumers now rely primarily on the web when searching for a new product or service. These businesses are shifting their marketing expenditures to search engine optimization, pay per click advertising and website development and away from traditional newspaper advertising. And these dollars will never return.

Lack of Design Thinking
The newspaper’s response to this critical strategic shift in demand for their product reflects an absence of design thinking. The typical management response has been to reduce staff, demand concessions from their remaining employees, reduce the size of their paper and threaten online bloggers and news aggregators who dare link to the newspaper’s articles.

Design thinking is about creating a better, different alternative to newsprint for news (and advertising) delivery. The current news executives are focused on analytic choices between producing newsprint for a large audience or a smaller audience, not on envisioning a different news delivery vehicle altogether.

These executives appear to lack the essential components for creative design thinking. Rather than empathize with our desire to receive the news on our terms and on our schedule, they continue to focus on printing and delivering the news on their terms. They need to take a “people first” approach and design a solution that revolves around our desires, not theirs. And I have no desire for a stack of newsprint in my driveway each morning.

They should also read Roger Martin’s brilliant book, The Opposable Mind: How Successful leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking. Martin, the dean of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, details through case studies how managers can synthesize opposing ideas and create bold and dynamic solutions to seemingly insoluble problems.

Experiment and Collaborate
One thing is clear: the newspaper industry won’t solve its problems by doing more of the same, but at a smaller scale. They need to accept that their industry has changed and will never revert to their former glory days. They will need to experiment with new solutions and collaborate with creative geniuses in online disciplines to create a news experience that people will clamor for.

Collaborate with Google, Twitter, Facebook and other social media leaders. Partner with Amazon to deliver your news to reader’s Kindles. Provide subsidized netbooks that receive your news and advertising feeds directly.

I’m not sure what strategy will work or what the future of news delivery will look like precisely. Only one thing is certain: it won’t look like their current model. And they need to start now.

Recall the best customer service episodes of your life. The bending over backward, amazing and memorable service that still stands out in your mind because of its novelty and surprise.

Now think about the worst service you’ve received. The utility company that puts you on hold for 40 minutes. The cellular provider whose billing errors are repeated month after month. The cable company whose installers can’t show up within a 4 hour window.

What’s the difference in perception between the two? Excellent service is typically characterized by intimate personal care and attention while infuriating corporate service is defined by its impersonal, detached and indifferent nature.

One is delivered by a caring person, the other by a faceless, nameless corporate drone.

Which one do you want to do business with?

Now, which do you provide your clients? What’s the face that you put on your social media interactions with your clients?

Many small businesses aspire to be larger and more impressive than they actually are. In their misguided efforts to appear more “corporate,” they depersonalize their client interactions. Calls are forwarded to “Accounts Receivable” instead of “Beverly.” E-mails come from “ABC Inc.” instead of “Mike Bender.” And clients are asked to follow a corporate Twitter account instead of “Betty_at_ABC“.

The explosion of social media platforms and their rapid adoption by business has magnified the disconnect between the “social” potential of these online tools and the typical, misguided, self-interested corporate implementation of these platforms.

They are called social media because of their ability to foster and encourage two-way conversations and to enable tangible and enduring relationship building. But individuals – your clients – don’t build relationships with companies, they build relationships with people. People with names. With interesting backgrounds. With unique, and perhaps overlapping, personal interests.

Your dedicated, caring employees are a distinct and valuable asset that should be leveraged in your social media strategy. They’re the ones who interact with your clients daily and already have the relationships that can be strengthened and extended.

You want to play in the social media sandbox? Be social.

We’re all exhibitionists now. The amalgam of perpetually available social networking tools have enabled everyone to share their most intimate thoughts, personal feelings and illuminating (and embarrassing) photos. Now if only there were a website that infused its visitors with a modicum of common sense and decorum.

Sonny Gill wrote this morning of a west coast job seeker who posted her thoughts about landing a job with Cisco. It seems that after her interview, the applicant Tweeted:

Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.

The stupidity of this public comment cannot be overstated. Shortly after its post, the job seeker received a Tweet in reply from Cisco :

Who is the hiring manager. I’m sure they would love to know that you will hate the work. We here at Cisco are versed in the web.

Busted.

This public idiocy followed a recent embarrassing Tweet, recounted by Peter Shankman, that caught an ad agency rep responsible for social media training (oh, the sweet irony), trashing the home city of his largest client, FedEx. On a public forum. Where everyone could see. Including the CEO of FedEx.

Time for some quick rule reminders:

1. Refrain from posting negative comments about another person or company.
2. If you break Rule #1, remember that all public comments are permanent.
3. Rule #2 means forever.
4. Share intimate thoughts and feelings in a private medium (e-mail), not a public forum.
5. If you write it, expect that it will become public someday.
6. Expect repercussions. There is a Twidiot tax. Tweet something profoundly offensive or stupid, and you can expect to suffer the consequences.

Full disclosure: I fully acknowledge that my intemperate comments below concerning my raging hatred of the dark and evil forces controlling Ticketmaster will likely prevent me from ever pursuing employment with the Ticketing Evil That Must Not Be Named. I’m ok with that.