Prepare for Takeoff. Again. And Again. And Again… JetBlue Offers “All You Can Jet”

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder & Fusion Director, Atomic Tango LLC

Never unpack again.

Suddenly, millions of Americans are making lists of where they would like to go. Others are wishing they hadn’t wasted all their vacation days during the summer. College football fans are checking their team schedules and packing extra jerseys. And Gov. Mark Sanford can park the state jet for a month.

In a deft bit of marketing, JetBlue is offering an “All-You-Can-Jet” pass that lets you “fly JetBlue anywhere you like, as often as you like, from September 8 to October 8″ for only $599.

United States of Generica: Pizza Hut Becomes “The Hut”

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder & Fusion Director, Atomic Tango LLC

No pizza for you!

What’s wrong with pizza? I love pizza! Yet fast food giant Pizza Hut is dropping the word “pizza” from some of its store names and packaging. While still officially called Pizza Hut, the chain will refer to itself as “The Hut” to reportedly make it a more appealing place for teens to hang out. Hey, we’re not a fast food joint, we’re a cool clubhouse!

In The Can: Coors Campaign Leaves Us Cold

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder & Fusion Director, Atomic Tango LLC

Just chillin'

It’s not as much fun picking on Coors now as when they were run by right-wing zealots from a mountain stronghold in Colorado. (Alright, it’s a brewery, but it’s fun to say “mountain stronghold.”) I did razz ‘em for their faux microbrew, Blue Moon. But since Coors became the Molson Coors company, they’re part-Canadian, and Canadians are our lovable liberal neighbors to the north with free healthcare, right? To further confuse matters, Molson Coors joined with SABMiller, the South African owner of Miller Beer, to form MillerCoors to promote their products in the U.S. And next year, South Africa will be hosting the World Cup, which is a glorious celebration of international unity through sports. Or something like that.

So how can I pick on Coors now? It’s too easy…

Buzz Marketing? Winery Goes 2.0 with Job Contest

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder & Fusion Director, Atomic Tango LLC

A job so cool, you even get a bitchin' hat.

Talk about truth in advertising: this really is a dream job.

Murphy-Goode Winery in Sonoma County, California, is offering one lucky applicant a six-month gig to be their “social media whiz.” The job involves blogging/posting/tweeting/videotaping the winery, its products, the lifestyle and the surrounding community…

Vintage Coppola? Product Placement Gone Wild

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder & Fusion Director, Atomic Tango LLC

So here I was flipping through the Calendar section of the L.A. Times. (Only in Hollywood is the entertainment section of the major newspaper called the “Calendar.” No, we don’t do anything else in this town but entertain or be entertained.) My eye caught the full-page ad for new movie Tetro. The ad brims over with critical raves, with the first quote proclaiming “Francis Ford Coppola, 70, has returned to his roots…”

That must be referring to his grape vine roots.

The Chips are Down: A Lesson in Branding

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder & Fusion Director, Atomic Tango LLC

Faux Sure!

You already know that Pringles aren’t really potato chips. One bite told you that. You just ate ‘em because they make good midnight munchies. And they come in that cool tube.

But the blogosphere buzzed when parent company Proctor & Gamble publicly proclaimed that Pringles aren’t entirely made from potatoes…

Saks and the City: How to Lower Your Standards for Fun and Profit

"That's when he said he was a marketer! Imagine that? A marketer expecting to date me?"

You’ve all seen the standard romantic comedy: the lead character pines for a fantasy ideal — a millionaire, supermodel, quarterback, cheerleader, prince or princess — but in the end, our hopeless romantic finds true love with a best friend, worst enemy, nerd, prostitute, maid or bodyguard. Delusions dispelled, the true lovers lock lips and live happily ever after. Or until Hollywood makes a sequel.

Today, thanks to the recession, many businesses are undergoing the same head-spinning realignment of expectations. Their dream consumers — namely, the filthy rich — are suddenly coming up short. Damn them. So these once discriminating businesses must now pursue less profitable paramours: potential mates who were once considered “beneath them.” Some businesses even undergo extreme makeovers to appeal to the masses. And you know where that could lead…

iCandy: What iPhone Apps and Hershey Bars Have in Common

Recession? What recession? Apple enjoyed a 15% surge in profits for the first quarter of this year and, more sensationally, just sold its one billionth iPhone App. That’s one billion in just nine months! That would be remarkable during boom times, but during the worst economy in 70 years?

Well, of course. It makes perfect sense. In fact, perhaps the recession is the reason it happened…

I Survived The L.A. Kogi Truck Line: Masterful Marketing Meets Meaty Munchies

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder & Fusion Director, Atomic Tango LLC

How do you say "potentially addictive" in Korean?

I just waited an hour-and-a-half in line for a taco.

Make that 97 minutes for four tacos and two burritos, to be exact. I had started out wanting only a bite from the legendary Kogi Korean BBQ taco truck, but by the time I made it to the front of the line, I was hungry for more and had to justify my adventure.

There’s great marketing at work for ya…

Writing a Newsletter? Heed the Beer Dudes and Pour It On!

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder & Fusion Director, Atomic Tango LLC

One of my more rewarding discoveries in college was Samuel Adams beer. At the time, Sam was primarily a Boston phenomenon, so upon moving to L.A. after graduation, I found myself bereft and bewildered. For all its creative profligacy, Los Angeles was still dominated by the usual beer suspects: Budweiser, Miller and Coors (the bland leading the bland).

Naturally, I was thrilled when Sam started appearing in L.A. bars as an “import.” (I knew about the Lakers-Celtics rivalry, but describing Boston’s greatest export since Aerosmith as “foreign” was taking it a bit far.) Ironically, the Boston Beer Company (the maker of Sam Adams) is now the largest purely American brewer left. (Bud is owned by the Belgians, Coors is half-Canadian, and Miller is South African. But I’m sure you all already knew that.)

I was so stoked to see Boston Beer Co. expanding that I bought shares in the company, which has proven to be one of my few good stock investments. (SAM has also been battered by the current economy, but not as badly as my radio investments.) Not only do I dig a cold Sammy now and then, there’s a lot to be admired about the company:

• CEO Jim Koch inherited three generations of brewing expertise
• he’s a former Boston Consulting Group exec who doesn’t believe in long-term debt
• and he treats his employees well.

Although Sam Adams’ product-centric TV commercials won’t win any creative awards — an experiment with a costumed “Sam” character was underdeveloped and short-lived — I’ve come to enjoy one expression of their marketing…

“Show Me Your V”: It’s about sports. Really. I think.

Why? Why? Why?

Raise your hand if you’ve heard of Versus… Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Apparently, not too many people know about the small sports network, which I personally appreciate for bringing me football games from the PAC-10 and the Ivy League. Where else would I be able to catch the Harvard-Cornell game in L.A.?

Obviously, Versus wants more than us middle-aged marketing geeks. So in an effort to generate awareness, Versus is asking for more than a show of hands. They’re literally asking people to “Show Me Your V.”

Really.

Business The Buffett Way — Not Warren, But Jimmy

Parrotheads

Want to see a brand done right — and gone wild? Go to a Jimmy Buffett concert, but don’t bother with the music performance.

What Will You Start? West Virginia Is Wired In

Nice work, WVU! And I’m not just talking about your football team.

Friend Me: 5 Rules for Advertising on Facebook

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder & Fusion Director, Atomic Tango LLC

Updated 26 June 2009

In its infancy, Facebook sucked for advertisers, as its mostly collegiate users ignored mass marketing en route to mass socializing. No surprise there: Facebook is a social network, so its users were using it as intended.

But the commercial disinterest of Facebook users meant that marketers were wasting their dinero. For us refugees from the full-frontal ad assault called MySpace, that was a good thing. For Facebook’s investors? Not so much.

Then a couple of transformational events occurred…

Copycats Beware: Obama from a Marketing Perspective

Different is good. And one of the primary responsibilities of a marketer is to make sure your brand stands out from the competition — ideally in a good way. (Yeah, I’m talking to you, Chrysler.)

Bail Fail: The Wall Street Fiasco from a Marketing Perspective

Row away! Row away!

Originally published September 30, 2008…

Reflecting on Monday’s abject failure of the Wall Street Bailout bill, it would be totally remiss of me not to say it:

Could the marketing of that bill have sucked more?

First, there’s the nickname: “Wall Street Bailout.” Who came up with that and how was it allowed to stick around?

Listening at Maximum Volume: NIN’s Trent Reznor Connects

Burn your copies of Harvard Business Review. Forget anything you’ve ever read by Al Ries or Seth Godin. And skip that conference on best practices. If you want to see how marketing is really done, follow the rock stars….

“Viral” Does Not Mean “Free”: The Reality Behind The Buzz

Where's that buzz coming from?

I recently had lunch with an entrepreneur to discuss her marketing problems. She had launched her company with a PR campaign, and the initial results were spectacular, with major media coverage and a torrent of traffic to her site… But that torrent dried to a trickle as the press and consumers lost interest. In just a couple of years her company had become “old news.” Since her operations were now sucking up all of her available cash, she wanted a low-cost marketing option, and she called me to discuss this viral marketing thing…

Bankruptcy is the Fashion? Mervyns Fails to Declare its Style

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder & Fusion Director, Atomic Tango LLC

As an L.A. based interactive-media guy for the past 14 years, I’m expected to blog about sexy new developments online or in Hollywood, but today I’ve decided to write about Mervyns department store. And, yes, that’s the only time you’ll ever see the words “sexy” and “Mervyns” in the same sentence.

Ah, I see I just lost 98% of this article’s readers — which reflects about the same percentage of consumers who couldn’t care less about the fashion retailer. And that explains why Mervyns recently declared bankruptcy. Since the economy’s been Bushed again, it’s easy to point fingers at macroeconomic issues, and that’s exactly what Mervyns’ management is doing…

“Your Skin Color is not a Stain!”: L.A. Teen Takes on Unilever’s Bigotry

Delia Rose is mad as hell. In her usually lighthearted and witty blog, Impeach the Muffins, the L.A. teenager is calling for a boycott of Unilever. The reason? The skin-whiteners that the corporate behemoth distributes and promotes in Malaysia and other Eastern countries…

“Wait, That’s My Face!”: Identity Theft, Social Networking Style

Paige H. got a huge surprise this week. The 20-something Midwesterner had attempted to keep a low profile online: “no MySpace, no Facebook, no blog” — indeed, she’s long had a “distaste for the world of social networking websites.” And yet, thanks to a marketing schemer, she became one of the most popular girls on Facebook… but under the name “Monica Rockle.”

File Under “WTF?”: Belvedere Goes Down… Town

So I’m thumbing through my favorite geek magazine, Wired, when I’m suddenly confronted by this Belvedere Vodka ad that features a woman applying lipstick in the reflection of a belt buckle. (If any of my female readers have ever executed such a task, please let me know… What? None of you have? Gee, what a surprise…) With Freudian symbol in hand, she’s got that deer-ho in the headlights look. Not exactly what you expect to find in Wired amidst ads for Zune, Casio and the Discovery Channel. (Hey, have we got a discovery for you…)

This Way To The Egress: The Pros and Con Artists of Marketing

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder & Fusion Director, Atomic Tango LLC

“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” — Abraham Lincoln

“There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.” — George W. Bush

“Beware of geeks bearing grifts.” — Cool Rules Pronto

Phineas Taylor Barnum was the consummate 19th Century showman and one deceptive bastard…

Say Vhat?! Do the People Want a VW with a German Accent?

He sits there before his microphone, round and retro, emanating the cuteness that made him an icon in America. On this occasion, he’s in somber black, though he’s usually seen decked out like a jelly bean. And then he speaks…

American Apparel Sports a Woody: Madness is the Method

American Apparel CEO Dov Charney acts like he’s missing his calling. The controversial and flamboyant entrepreneur could parlay his promotional genius and predilection for the prurient to become one hell of a porn producer. (The San Fernando Valley, the porn capital of the world, is just over the hill from American Apparel’s headquarters.) It would certainly suit his notorious lifestyle…