Lindsey’s Daily Deal: Give ‘Em Something To Talk About, Bing Rewrites History and You Lie!

By Lindsey Campbell, Captains of Industry

Hey Captains’ readers,

Here’s your Thursday Deal:

1. Let’s give ‘em something to talk about

Your entire teenagehood is spent in a state of utter paranoia, basically praying to the Popularity Gods that no one thinks you’re like, the lamest kid ever. Does that person think I’m ugly? No. Do my parents sit around twirling their mustaches and plot how to make my life miserable? Maybe. Is everyone staring at my huge zit? Yes.

Emotional delusions just come with the territory of raging hormones. Thankfully, once your skin clears up, your brain does too, and you tend not to worry as much about what people think of you. But, there’s just one quality that even the most stable grownups have yet to master. The ability to not care if someone is, unfortunately, talking smack behind your back. I think marketers hate it the most. Why? Well, it’s our job to get people to like us, and the brands we represent. And just the mere thought of bad press circling the airwaves about something we represent is enough to make us revert back to our days of mean girls and Clearasil. But thankfully, Andy Sernovitz of MarketingProfs has something way better than a truckload of benzoyl peroxide: six tips to get people talking about you…in a good way.

1. Delightful surprises earn long-term customer love.
Some of the biggest triggers of word of mouth are surprise and delight.

2. Your best talkers aren’t always your target customers.
Find out WHO IS talking about your brand now and reach out to them rather than wasting your efforts on the people you want to talk about you.

3. Find your voice and use measurement to refine it.
Your voice is your critical first point of contact with your audience. So make it worth listening to.

4. Do special things for special audiences.
One of the biggest sparks of word of mouth is a feeling of having special, insider information.

5. It’s not about your product, it’s about what you do with your product.
Build your fan community. They can help your business more than you think.

6. Make love.
You want to spread your ideas to the ends of the earth–but, unfortunately, good ideas don’t always get the recognition they deserve. If you want people talking about you, you need to make them fall in love–with you and your idea. Love makes people talk.

If you want to learn more about Sernovitz’s tips, check him out on MarketingProfs.

2. Bing rewrites history

The concept of Bing mobile’s latest commercial campaign is based on how classic movies like Thelma and Louise and Easy Rider would have turned out if the characters had access to Bing.

How does Bing know where we are, man? It just does, man. It just does.

3. You Lie!

For our new business efforts, the Captains have been wondering what other industries we can sink our marketing teeth into. Recently, the thought of an online dating service seemed like it would be the perfect fit considering our video production capabilities and unstoppable desire to make any potentially awkward situation funny and outrageous. So, the Captains’ team went into research and brainstorming mode to find out more about what types of content a dating site, and their users, might need. One of the points we kept coming back to is how people tend to uh, LIE, when it comes to their profiles. Then, funny enough, I came across OkCupid insider Christian Rudder’s article on Gizmodo this morning about the biggest lies people tell on their online dating profiles. Coincidence? I think not. Rather than let this deception continue, Rudder decided to tell the world some of the biggest fibs daters tell, and the realities behind them. Here’s the top three:

1. “I’m 6 feet tall.”
REALITY: People are two inches shorter in real life.
Why the lie? According to OkCupid’s data, taller guys have more sex. Hey, if I were a dude, I’d lie too.

2. “I make $100,000 a year.”
REALITY: People are 20% poorer than they say they are.
After examining the research, Rudder has come to the conclusion, “If you’re a young guy and don’t make much money, cool. If you’re 23 or older and don’t make much money, go die in a fire.” Ouch. I’m thinking the pain of that harsh reality might just be worse than Rudder’s alternative.

3. “Here’s a recent pic.”
REALITY: The more attractive the picture, the more likely it is to be out-of-date.
I get this. Who wants to put a picture of themselves looking fat/old/schlepy on a dating site?

Rudder, If you think OkCupid could benefit from some kick ass content that will help your users fight their way through all the untruths that are out there in the dating world, please contact us. If there’s anything we love, it’s creating cool content that will have users flocking to your site.

FYI to Captains’ fans: Check out a segment on CNN this Friday @ 5:00 P.M. that features a video we made for a product called GlowCaps–they help people remember to take their medications. It was produced in 2008, but the client is still getting traction from it.  Just goes to show that good web content gets your product on the map – year after year.

Until Monday,

Captain Lindsey