Had Bad Pizza? They'd Like To Meetz'Ya!

I ran across an ad in the local arts paper that I thought was a gag. The headline said "Reckless pizza ordering is an offense. If you've been the victim of recklessly bad pizza ordering, contact us! Warwick-Law.com" I scoured the paper for notice of a fake-ad contest, but could find none. I tore out the page with the intent to visit the website next time I was online.

The website for Warwick-Seltz is intentionally poorly designed. It looks like it was made with a lame Microsoft Front Page template. You quickly meet Attorney Royce W. Warwick. Warwick is a David Letterman look-a-like, and member of PLIS (pizza-law institution of specialists), PLAA (pizza-law association of America) and serves on the board of NAPLL (the national association for pizza law litigation). After visiting his "free live consultation" using the now oh-so-familiar interface to interact with Warwick in a "live" consultation -- it's easy to spot as a "Subservient Chicken" knock-off.

Although the execution still qualifies as 'creat-IVE', I think they stopped 'creat-ING' too soon. Here are a few features I'd like to see the ad agency add to the campaign in order to improve upon the concept and increase the effective message reach through Word Of Mouth:
1. Blog Banners
Why no Warwick-Law ad banners that people could add to their own blogs and websites? That paid placement mock-ad the advertising agency used in Columbus Alive captured my attention enough to save it until I could get in front of a computer. Why not let the public get in on the joke and add make it easy to add a Warwick-Law banner to their personal webpages. By providing cut-and-paste code, the agency could offer additional tracking and stats to their client.

2. Join the Class Action Lawsuit
Inviting people to join the "Class Action Suit" against mediocre pizza by providing their email address (and rewarding them with a coupon from the client) would allow the client to build a marketing database and provide tangible results from the campaign. There IS a "milestone settlement offer" buried a couple links deep into the site, but it's not easy to find and the offer is for only a dollar-off the regular price of the pizza. Why not give away a free personal-sized pizza?

3. Warwick-Seltz Worked For Me
Although there is a link to watch tv ads for their lawfirm (excellent parodies of those horrible ambulance-chasing ads we've all seen on television), there is no obvious way (nor invitation) to post these ads on your own website.

With the huge influx of consumer-generated advertising and the availability of a website like YouTube.com -- why aren't the Warwick-Seltz ads ON YouTube.com?? And why no invite to have people submit their own "I suffered from someone neglectfully ordering mediocre pizza and Warwick-Seltz got me a settlement" style commercials that could also be posted (and spread virally) through YouTube.com? Encouraging these video submissions by providing folks with a free pizza or sub seems an extremely easy thing to do.

4. Report An Offender
Why no 'tell-a-friend' feature? It could have been built into the masquerade by allowing people to report offenders of the mediocre pizza laws, referring other litigants for the class action suit, etc. The agency has provided no obvious way to share the link with friends (other than me physically copying the address and emailing it myself.)

5. Tales of Suffering
We've all had crappy pizza. Why is there no place to collect these testimonials of pizza-pain and suffering? A simple message board to collect the comments and war stories from site visitors would have added an additional level of interaction.

6. Cease & Desist Letters
Royce Warwick himself (during my free consultation) sported a "cease and desist" fridge magnet he created for an Aunt guilty of ordering bad pizza. Why no auto-generated lawyer letter that can be emailed to a friend or coworker? Even McDonald's on their barely less-than-lame McMornings website allows the creation of a late-to-work excuse created by the "Excuse Generator 3000." Something similar could have added an interactive and viral component sorely missing from the Warwick-Law website.

My conclusion?
In an obvious effort to create an ad campaign that the agency hopes to spread virally, they have left off every obvious avenue to help people spread the word.

Perhaps Warwick-Seltz needs to bring on another partner to specialize in mediocre ad campaigns?

Beyond the Bean

Although I originally feared Starbucks expanding into music, movies, and now books as line extensions far beyond their coffee culture, at second glance I think that Howard Schultz is in the process of completely reinventing his brand beyond the bean. The new focus seems to be not so much on coffee, but on culture.

Careful that the concentration on "pop" (culture) doesn't put you out of the coffee business. In other words, don't forget to dance with who brung ya.

Reality Shows Equal Real Sales

JustSell.com published some interesting sales stats spawned by American Idol --
"American Idol" is impacting the album charts even before its new idol is crowned, with its weekly audience of more than 30 million boosting sales for the established artists who lend their songs and talents to the show. After "Idol" performances...

• Barry Manilow's "Greatest Songs of the Fifties" jumped from No. 24 to No. 4 with a 140% spike in sales.
• Shakira's album (reissued with the single she performed) soared from No. 98 to No. 6.
• Stevie Wonder's first new studio album in a decade doubled in sales.
• Kenny Rogers' new album debuted at No. 14, and he scored a "People" magazine article and a place on radio station playlists.
• Two Keith Urban singles got a 20% boost in sales (and he didn't even perform, the aspiring Idols did).

Similar sales jumps can be associated with shows like The Apprentice, where the limited edition vehicle from a past season's challenge sold out in ten days, and the Staples Apprentice Desk Caddy resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in internet sales over span of a few hours.

Now THAT'S adding some caffeine to your advertising!

Coffee IS for Closers

A new study suggests that giving someone a cup of coffee before an argument will make them more likely to agree with you -- provided the argument is convincing.

Based on the idea that for a brief time caffeine allows a person to both increase their concentration and their to absorb new information. Voluntary test subjects were given a persuasive argument on a controversial subject after having coffee. Subject responses indicated that more of them were likely to agree with the argument than they were before having the java juice.

Those under the influence of the bean were better able to process and evaluate new information provided in the argument, rather than relying on the preconceptions and ignoring facts (as did their non-caffeinated control group counterparts.)

Watch for advertisers to begin running even MORE commercials in the morning, when their targets are likely drinking coffee.

My Prediction for SBUX: Gaming is Next

From this morning's Promo Xtra...

Starbucks Hires William Morris to Promote Music, Film
Starbucks Corp. is redefining the casting couch. The mega coffee-maker has gone from staking a claim in the music business to dabbling in movies to announcing a partnership last week with the William Morris Agency to put an emphasis on identifying music, film and book projects that it can promote and distribute from its stores. The effort is a bid to enhance the overall entertainment experience for its millions of dedicated coffee drinkers.

Starbucks touted its national footprint of stores, strong passion and trust from its huge and diverse customer base, and proven track record with word-of-mouth marketing as drivers for the significant interest it has seen-and expects to see-as a partner to labels and studios.
For the full article

My prediction for the next arena the bean-pusher will enter is GAMING. I'm a bit surprised they went with movies before gaming, but that's gotta be for the product placement. I haven't seen Akkelah and The Bee, but I'm betting there's a whole lot o' coffee drinking going on.

Gaming is a more natural match for in-store visits. The high-speed wifi, endless access to caffeine, and the chairs/tables make for laptop heaven -- though I suppose they wouldn't want an army of high school kids with laptops and headphones camping-out in their thirdspace.

Clever Caffeine

BillyT at TheCoolHunter.net posted the details of a New York campaign by Saatchi & Saatchi on behalf of Folgers.

They used large, full-color, photo-realistic vinyl imprints of a tasty looking cup of coffee and put them on manhole covers throughout the city. The vinyl photo had vents to allow the steam that normally rises from the covers to take on a whole new appearance -- that of aromatic steam rising from a hot cup of Folgers coffee. Brilliant!

You gotta check out the photo -- awesome!