I just contacted a company because a coupon code they emailed me didn’t work.

As it turns out, it expired in their time zone, not mine, so I missed a discount of about $10 by about 10 minutes.

Sure, I could have been an ass about the fact they didn’t state the timezone on their coupon, but it was only $10.

But customer delight drives word of mouth, and had they bent the rules by 10 minutes and honored it, this would have been a different post — and I would have surely shared the name of the company with you.

I’ve been a non-friction customer for at least eight years and have spent thousands there. What a shame my business wasn’t worth $10 to them the first time they actually had to provide this customer with a little customer service.

What a shame, indeed.

How do you think they should have handled my inquiry?

There are plenty of things we don’t like: Racism. Bigotry. Violence. Corporate greed run amok. Comic sans.

But boring marketing is irresponsible, and boring Dollar Shave Club is not.

This is f**king brilliant.

Ben and Jerry’s has announced a new limited edition batch of ice cream, “Schweddy Balls.” For the uninitiated, here’s the SNL skit it’s based upon:

It’s funny. Really, really funny.

Surely some people will be offended, right? Of course. Some people will are offended when you say “darn,” too.

I’d argue “Schweddy Balls” is responsible. The product packaging isn’t lewd or crude, and neither is the product. Boring marketing is irresponsible, and this ain’t boring.

And while Ben & Jerry’s is known for their controversial ice cream flavors, they are perhaps better known for their obsession with social and economic responsibility.

So what do you think of Ben & Jerry’s new “Schweddy Balls?”

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I know. This execution has been done before, but it’s still pretty clever and the message is the right one.

There’s been plenty of talk about the eminent death of the publishing industry as we know it. This video addresses these preconceptions head-on, then flips ‘em on their ear.

This video was created by the UK brand of Dorling Kindersley for internal use. Its positive message and creative execution made it a big hit at DK and they decided it was worth sharing outside the organization.

Really, the power of this video lies in its ability to change perceptions, and in about two weeks it’s been viewed nearly 300,000 times.

So, where can you use creativity to change perceptions?

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The nearly unbearable gritty realism of a head-on collision features heads snapping back and forth on impact, gushing blood, a child crying for its dead parents and a dead infant has created controversy, and as expected—conversation.

• The argument against: It’s simply too explicit.
• The argument for: Desensitized youth will actually pay attention.

There’s merit to both points, but seeing this video made me wonder, “If this wasn’t a PSA—if this was an ad for child seats, OnStar or another product—what would the conversation look like?”

Are we more accepting of questionable content in PSA’s because it’s for the common good and not for profit?

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Thanks to Deston Nokes and Martin Pierce for sharing this video with me last week.

You haven’t? Well, now you are in the know:

There’s a lot to like here: It’s fun, unique, the CGI was done well and who doesn’t love Rapper’s Delight? It’s the type of video you can hardly resist hitting the “share” button on and it’s really making the rounds.

Irresistable? Fun? Must be Responsible Marketing, right?

Well, yes and no.

Really, it depends on whether you think it’s possible for a company marketing a product many deem to be irresponsible can ever do Responsible Marketing.

Here are five reasons to not drink bottled water, from Lighter Footsteps and the Sierra Club:

• Bottled water isn’t a good value
• No healthier than tap water
• 1.5 million tons of plastic waste per year
• Requires up to 47 million gallons of oil per year to produce
• Creates a risk to marine life
• Results in less attention to public systems

So what do you think?

Comment below to weigh in.

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• The Prius felt underpowered
• The Camry was nice, but felt too much like the Accord I’d just turned in
• The Insight was loud and somewhat disappointing
• And the Highlander Hybrid was so close in price to the Lexus, I chose the latter of the two

But the events of the last week have me second-guessing myself, and I have Ford’s social media marketing team (and a great product) to blame for it.

Let me explain.

A few weeks ago, Ford contacted me “looking for fresh perspectives and feedback, something a little more engaging and authentic” from “non-traditional approach for bloggers and other content creators” and asked if I’d be interested in test driving the new Fusion Hybrid for a few days.

I agreed, and last Thursday, they delivered a shiny new one to my office, with the Michigan “Manufacturer” plate and all.

Here are few pictures I snapped with my iPhone:

I drove the car to work, to the beach, to Costco, to a Mariners game. Basically everywhere.

The fit and finish were good and the ride was really quiet. In fact, it put my both my high-energy kids to sleep on the ride back from their grandma’s house. Sounds like a cliche, but it’s true.

I got a lot of comments from neighbors “That’s really a nice car,” co-workers “I’d buy that” and was even given a special parking spot by a parking lot attendant after he said “Is that the new Fusion Hybrid—cool!”

What I liked most was the fact I nearly forgot it was a hybrid. The transfer from electric to gas is less obvious than it is with my Lexus, a fact that the press hasn’t missed, with USA Today calling it the best gas-electric hybrid yet.

Oh, and while I didn’t get the 81.5 miles per gallon achieved in a recent hypermiling stunt, I did get a respectable 39.5 MPG in a mid-size car.

All-in-all, an eye-opening experience.

Ford’s social media team is firing on all cylinders

You might have heard the buzz about the Fiesta Movement, Ford’s social campaign that put 100 “agents” (selected from over 4,000 applicants) behind the wheel of a 2011 Ford Fiesta for six months and how they’re sharing the results of their “missions” on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube.

Ford is winning on the social web due to the aggressive approach that Scott Monty and Ford’s social media team have been taking to engage customers and build authentic conversations around their products and brands.

A return to the past?

Their bet is that if people actually drive a Ford, they might buy one. In fact, Alan Mullaly, CEO of Ford, is interested in resurrecting “Have you driven a Ford lately?” campaign from the mid 1980′s.

Here’s an ad from that campaign that aired in 1984, the year I graduated from high school.

So, why didn’t I consider Ford?

Old attitudes and habits die hard.

Recent research from Nielsen puts Ford’s brand advocacy quotient below companies such as Kia, Pontiac and Chrysler.

While Ford’s branding and social media campaigns are good, I’ve become brand loyal to other manufacturers and it will take a lot to break that hold.

Ford’s dealers still publish absurdly noisy ads with prices the average buyer will seldom get (loyalty discounts, military discounts, first-time buyer discounts, etc)— and you’ll always have to haggle with the salesperson and expect them to bring in the manager when they can’t close the sale.

Still, that happens with most dealers and Ford’s product is good and worth a look.

People like me have been saying “Once American manufacturers catch up with Japanese and Germans, I’ll start buying American cars again.”

Well folks, has that time come? Ford’s product quality and the way they’re communicating with customers has me reconsidering their offerings.

Comment below to weigh in.

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But since it was, well, lumpy, and delivered via FedEx I opened it. Here’s what I found:

On one side, it says “Yes, these are real grasshoppers. They’ve even been approved by the FDA of Thailand.”

On the other side:

You’re a risk-taker, a dream-realizer. What’s left to do that you haven’t already done? Eat a grasshopper. They’re farm raised, covered in chocolate and rich in protein. So, not only will you be breaking boundaries, but you’ll be eating healthy, too.

The attached tag included the call to action:

Entrepreneurs can change the world.
Join the movement now!
www.grasshopper.com/idea

I really didn’t have the time, but I couldn’t resist jumping on this to learn what it was all about. The URL takes you to a page with the following video:

As it turns out, Grasshopper offers a nicely-packaged virtual PBX service for businesses. It’s a direct competitor to Grand Central, a similar service recently purchased by Google that’s locked down while Google integrates it into their systems.

Five things I loved about this campaign

1. The FedEx package made it feel urgent without using deceptive “Urgent – Open Immediately” language. This is message responsible.
2. Lumpy mail gets opened.
3. This is textbook example of how to do a word of mouth campaign. Chocolate covered grasshoppers? I had to share this with colleagues and with you.
4. A little mystery goes a long way. There was no sales copy—just a creative idea and a URL to learn more. Irresistible.
5. The landing page made it easy to share the video on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and and a host of other sites using an AddThis widget.

And the three things I didn’t love

1. Each tag was numbered, X of 5,000, and I understand after doing some research for this post that Grasshopper sent these packages to the people they deemed the 5,000 most influential people in America. Very flattering. But at first I thought I might need this code when I logged onto the website. Not so. This is not a limited edition keepsake, it’s a marketing piece. And by letting me know there were so many produced, it made me feel less special—at least initially.
2. The moving-text style video that was so fresh and interesting a year ago is beginning to get tired. I still like it, but it would seem every ‘movement’ has a video like this associated with it.
3. Which brings me to the whole ‘movement’ thing. I like to be inspired as much as the next entrepreneur, but I’m approaching my ‘movement’ saturation point. How many movements can one person truly join?

Still, Grasshopper has succeeded where most fail. In one fell swoop, they got my attention, held it, and they got me talking. And though I don’t need their service, If I did, I’d consider them.

So, what do you think of Grasshopper’s campaign?

Would you eat a chocolate covered grasshopper? (I won’t)

But if you’d like to try one, contact me and we’ll make it happen. I’ll post a video of you eating one here and you’ll be famous.

If you didn’t see one of their ads for their new Kentucky Grilled Chicken (the largest ad blitz in KFC history) you probably heard about the Oprah catastrophy. KFC was caught off guard when a promotion for a free two-piece meal featuring its new grilled chicken created such an overwhelming response the company ran out of chicken and customers had to be turned away.

KFC wasn’t execution responsible, but most companies would love to be overwhelmed by new customers. Especially El Pollo Loco, the 418-unit Costa Mesa, California-based chain that challenged KFC to a taste test in late April.

The company wants to pit its citrus-marinated grilled chicken against the KFC offering and has taken specific aim at KFC’s cooking process. While El Pollo Loco grills its chicken over an open flame, KFC’s chicken is cooked on a griddle—a point that the smaller contender hasn’t missed:

In KFC’s defense, if El Pollo Loco wants a taste test, all they have to do is conduct one, and by definition, grilling doesn’t require an open flame.

Amid the Oprah firestorm, KFC issued rain checks for anyone that was turned away. The rain checks were good until May 19, 2009—excluding Mother’s Day, May 10, 2009.

El Pollo Loco’s response: Ask KFC what they have against mothers, and honor KFC’s coupons on Mother’s Day.

In this David v. Goliath story, Goliath has yet to throw a swing.

It’s familiar territory for KFC—the company has failed to effectively respond to PETA’s long-running Kentucky Fried Cruelty campaign.

El Pollo Loco is receiving national attention playing chicken with KFC.

If not, how should they respond?

UPDATE: QSRWeb, an online publication covering quick-service restaurant ideas and trends, covered this topic in detail, interviewing me for the Responsible Marketing take in El Polo Loco winning this round of chicken war. Check it out.

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Thanks for Matthew Mason for the KFC tip.

Can you explain why ANYONE (let alone Burger King) would think it a good idea to adapt “I like Big Butts” to market a children’s meal?

Here’s the ad in question:

Extended version

This is one of the classic Responsible Marketing questions we talk about here. It takes real creativity to break through, and this ad is creative. But it’s also controversial, and controversy gets people talking and drives word of mouth. I’d argue this ad is almost impossible to keep to yourself.

Burger King knew exactly what they were approving: A funny, but potentially offensive ad for parents that they’d never want their young children to see.

Mission accomplished.

I am Burger King’s target:

• I have small children
• Sir-Mix-A-Lot song was popular when I was in college
• And I laughed out loud when Mix-A-Lot himself said “Booty is booty”  at the end

But the idea of my kids seeing this ad makes me cringe. The word “butt” is off limits in my house (my kids are age six and four), and the sexual references are everywhere.

Hamilton Nolan at Gawker.com puts it this way:

The point is Sir Mix-a-Lot is teaching obesity and sexuality to your kids and you’re really okay with that, deep down, because you love Whoppers.

Is this ad message responsible?

I don’t think so.

But what’s your take?

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