I’ve never claimed to be the brightest person out there and, in fact, I’m pretty much living up to all of my 8th grade student advisor’s expectations but without the orange jump suit. I was on the fence re: Google until just recently. They might actually be more than a fad. And when CBS launched “Now” stations in NYC and SFO, I was not entirely sold on the name.
Until I was at a station and one of the interns was complaining about trying to get through on the request line from an event and it rang and rang and rang and it really pissed her off. “This is 2013, I shouldn’t have to wait on the phone. I should be able to get through to him now and whenever I want to.”
Now? Wow.
There really is an expectation of expedience that people have. It’s one of the things I’ve been preaching at Street School for two decades. How long will you stand at the counter at McDonalds and be ignored before you get pissed and walk across the parking lot to Bronco Burger? A minute?
So when you’re at an event and there are lines of people who are being ignored while you text your roommate to see if the keg was delivered, you’re going to disenfranchise them immediately.
This is 2013. Facebook has made the action of unfriending someone you’ve known and been buddies with since middle school, as simple and passionless as a drone strike. Click. They’re gone. And so are those people who you just blew off. And they ain’t never coming back.
I was looking at the competition’s Facebook page in one of the markets where I consult, and in the comments there were maybe nine or ten people asking about a promised Bruno Mars ticket giveaway. And they were waiting and waiting and waiting for someone to reply. And they were also getting pretty snippy with “Uh, hello?? Anyone here?” kinds of comments. So I tipped my client and they hooked up all of them with tickets.
Voile’: new listeners.
Mark Gullett was one of the best Marketing Directors I ever got to work with. He was the brain behind Q-102 in Philly when it launched and took out The Eagle and then was also kneedeep in the launch of Wild in Tampa. (He’s now the Marketing Guru with the 76’ers.)
When he was at Q he had the genius concept of prize delivery. His thinking was “We have made winning a pretty high maintenance thing. You need to divert from your life and your job and have to battle traffic and look for a parking spot, just to get movie tickets. There has to be a better way.” And there was. He instituted a program that had the street team stocked with whatever the daily prizes were and they were dispatched to winners homes or workplaces. You win? You got it delivered to your door with 60 minutes.
This was just a small part in the bludgeoning death of The Eagle but it was also a helluva hook. And was picked up by Now in NY and it’s been part of their repertoire since they debuted.
With literally anything I want immediately available through my smart phone, what barriers have you thrown up in front of your listeners?
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