Marketing American Idol Style

Posted on by under Marketing

I have no problem admitting that I am a fan of American Idol. I have always loved live music. I have always thought that was the true test of a musician – What do they sound like on stage? If I have a choice, I will always buy the live version of the song or album.

Oh, there was a point to this post. Karl Moore and Mark Bajramovic wrote a piece that appeared in this week’s MarketingProfs called Marketing Lessons From American Idol. It is all about getting your customers involved early.

P.S. I want Fantasia to win. I am not sure she can beat La Toya, but she is getting my vote.

Comic Book Advice: Generate Passion

Posted on by under Marketing

“I remember what was cool when I was growing up. It was either DC or Marvel. You belonged to either one gang or the another. I think it is healthy for kids at the bookstore…talking about it [and ] disliking one company or another. They are buying everybody’s books. The important matter is that they are passionate about something. If it is passionate about loving Marvel or not loving Marvel, that’s great. Because being passive is just death.”

-Joe Quesada, Marvel Comics Editor in Chief and Penciller on Daredevil 1998-2001

Comic Book Advice: Creating a Club

Posted on by under Marketing

Stan Lee created many of the original characters for Marvel. You can see a biography of him at Salon.com

Here Lee talks about creating a comic book community:

“With Marvel, what I always tried to do was make it like a club; an inner group that we knew about and that the outside world wasn’t even aware of. If you read Marvel you were on the inside, you were hip, it was sort of an exclusive thing, limited just to Marvel readers. And I tried to talk to the readers, as if they were friends and not readers. Not only, hopefully, they’d enjoy the stories, but they enjoyed being a part of the Marvel mystique you might say.”

Consider that he was doing this forty years ago.

Advice from Comic Book Creators

Posted on by under Misc.

I have always liked comic books. I still have a couple hundred issues of X-Men in my basement from when I collecting. I would earn money mowing lawns in the summer, save it, and each month I would order all of my comics from Westfield Comics in Middleton.

I have enjoyed that fact Marvel has been producing full-length features. What proved it would work was X-Men in 1999. What proved you could make a lot of money doing it was Spiderman. Marvel has a list of 30 movies that are currently being developing.

I watched Daredevil over the weekend, and I thought it was good. I always make sure to watch the second disc of extras with any of the Marvel movies. On this disc, they interviewed a variety of people who have written and drawn Daredevil over the years. What struck me was how the stories they were telling were very applicable to business.

So this week, I am going to post a number stories from people like Stan Lee, Frank Miller, and John Quesada. I did this was the Hulk movie (here and here) and I thought it would be interesting to do again.

Karaoke Capitalism II

Posted on by under Management

I have talked about Swedish authors Jonas Ridderstrle and Kjell Nordstrm a number of times, (here, here, and here). They wrote Funky Business and more recently Karaoke Capitalism.

I still get search hits for Karaoke Capitalism. I wanted to let you know that you can get the new book at 800-CEO-READ. I talked about it on their blog early this week.

Get the right people

Posted on by under Customer Service

Hiring the right people is really important. I know it is a truism, but it was painfully obvious on our trip.

During the last week and a half, my family took three flights with the America West Airlines. It was myself, my wife and our one year old son taking the trip and having the little guy with us required bringing the carseat.

As I am sure you are aware, there are a dozen buckles and straps sticking out. We were a bit concerned about something getting caught on the conveyors they use.

In Milwaukee, we asked the check-in folks if they had anything we could put the carseat in. Their response was, “We don’t carry supplies”. The TSA folks pointed us to the Delta counter, where they were more than happy to help with a large plastic bag.

In San Diego, we asked the same question. The person checking us in said, “Hang on. I will be right back.” He came back with a 55 gallon trash bag. It worked great.

In Phoenix, we got the same story about how they didn’t stock supplies. This time Southwest came to our rescue.

Same problem, same rules, but three different people. One of them got it right.

Catching up

Posted on by under Etc.

We were out of town for a week and a half visiting family in San Diego (the Wild Animal Park is a must) and Phoenix. I came back and need to get the BBBT going. I also have the other gig which is keeping me busy.

I will get back to posting here. I want to share stories from the trip and I am catching up on some reading, so there might be some things there.