Marketing Logic

This week, Coca Cola is “formally embracing” the online video phenomenon of the exploding geyser created from mixing Mentos with Diet Coke. This statement is from the same company whose formal position a few months ago was:

“We would hope people want to drink [Diet Coke] more than try experiments with it,” says Coke spokeswoman Susan McDermott. She adds that the “craziness with Mentos … doesn’t fit with the brand personality” of Diet Coke.” From the Wall Street Journal June 12, 2006.

Well, now we have an official acceptance from Coke that people will now be publicly embraced for dropping Mentos into their product, rather than being shunned by the corporate giant for not consuming their product the “correct” way.

Mentos on the other hand, had been feeding the frenzy, as they spend less than $20 million on U.S. advertising annually, but have estimated the value of the online buzz to be “over $10 million.”

The Mentos homepage has been changed to feature three links: The original video on Eepybird, a video showing the science behind the reaction, the video “geyser” contest.

They have created an official online video contest, by partnering with YouTube, for people to submit their own DietCoke and Mentos video. The winner of which was announced the on October 13, 2006.

• 150 videos were submitted for the Mentos - YouTube contest.
• A search for Mentos and Coke on YouTube yields over 5,300 videos.
• The video phenomenon drove the attention of the mainstream media with the original video by Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz appearing on “Late Night with David Letterman” and Discovery Channel’s “Mythbusters.”

By the way, do you think Mentos minds that people are using their jingle, logo, and typical “Mentos thumbs-up” ending? I wonder why people are using the Mentos commercial elements rather than the Diet Coke jingle? Could it be that Mentos is more fun and memorable?

The announcement in MediaPost that Coke has “joined the exploding soda craze” is joined with skepticism and yawns. Coke has run a content for user-submitted videos on its site since July 2006, (this is late October 2006) but with very little attention.

Rant Alert!

Called “The Coke Show”, the entire klugy interface almost tells people to “go away” and does little to endear the site to the user. The CocaCola website is built entirely out of Flash and initially driven by JavaScript. Why is it so important to select a country? Everytime?

The Coke site is a blast from the past with it’s ignorance of usability, technical savvy and interaction. The typical corporate design of making people select their region, country and language is patently irritating. There is no other entrance to the site, and no cookies are dropped into your browser to remember your preference. You are subjected to the location menu - everytime.

Of course, the Flash takes place in a pop-up window and the background changes constantly during transitions.

While this can be an entertaining diversion, “for the kids.” It seems funny that corporate websites designed for the younger audiences rely on Flash effects and over-the-top graphics, the sites that are most popular among their target audience noticeably lack those intensive graphical designs (YouTube, MySpace, Yahoo).

Why do I keep thinking of “Yellow Submarine” and Blue Meanies when I see this interface?

By the way – because it is all in Flash, no bookmarking the page or sending a URL to your friends – you can’t.

Ok- done ranting.

Since July, when “The Coke Show” was announced, there are eight entries as of today on the Coke site. Count’em. That’s right, eight. By the way, the contest ends in a few days – does anyone hear that tree falling?

Simply by observation, the production values in the submitted videos are much more impressive than the thousands of YouTube videos. The lighting and sound are much more professional. Draw your own conclusions, but the videos on the coke site lack the raw user passion that you find on YouTube.

According to BL Ochman: “Watching big ad agencies trying to master new media is a lot like watching people who are having mid-life crises trying to look hip, cool and young by adopting the toys, tools, and language of youth….It’s rather pathetic.” Right on target. The coke videos are excruciatingly boring when compared to wildly uncontrolled nature of the user-created videos elsewhere.

Church of the Customer Blog has been tracking the phenomenon and has been making regular updates on the difference between Coke and Mentos in running with the market. Mentos jumped in early, capitalizing on the wave of copycat videos and joining with YouTube for their content.

Anyhow, the actual subject of the press release is less of a big deal than Coke “formally embracing” social media – Coke has asked the original creators of the Diet Coke and Mentos video to create a new one that will debut on October 30th, 2006.

Do you think Coke realizes that more people will view the video AFTER the debut than during the debut?

The announcement from the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) that it would offer SEO certification was received with skepticism within the SEO industry. This was not a surprise. Many have asked why or who, especially because some see that the DMA may be treading on on their territory. Conversely, the announcement was received with excitement within the DMA and from those outside of the SEO industry.
The DMA has been featuring SEO and SEM sessions for a few years now, as they have seen the value of it in their own organization. Many marketers know and understand the potential that this industry has, so the fact that a large marketing organization is getting involved should not be a shock to anyone.

Being an instructor for the DMA SEO Certification, I recently had some questions sent to me by Dave Temple, who recently started the SEO/SEM Certification Blog (nice eye on the future, Dave). I think he has some very important concerns, so I’ve decided to address them, or at least give my opinion, here on the Marketing Logic Blog.

There’s a lot of talk about this certification but I think the bottom line is you need to check out the instructors. Matt, did the first group at the DMA certification only take 4 the 10 level 1 coures? How do they continue to take the remaining courses? Also are the level 1 courses a pre requisite or can some just take level 2?

David,

Lots of good questions about the DMA Certification - I think they are necessary and relevant, so keep ‘em coming.

There were four out of ten planned courses presented at the DMA conference. These were planned as the introduction to the rest of the course and DMA members could take them at a discounted rate because it was the inaugural event.

The DMA is taking both the content and the presenters very seriously. Reviews from attendees were being graded over very closely. Amanda Watlington, who is in charge of the certification, is in close contact with the DMA staff. Obviously, the DMA wants to ensure a quality presentation of anything to have their stamp of approval.

The Level One Course is designed to be an overview for site managers, business owners and CEO’s to give them the level of knowledge they need to make competent hiring decisions, vendor selection, and direction for their sites.

Level 2 is designed for businesses to send their employees who will be managing the sites the PPC and SEO for their sites. This could reach as far as SEO companies that need to train new hires, but do not have the time, or a company that wants to train their IT or marketing staff for developing an internal web marketing program. Level 2 certification will have 5 core classes and 5 specialized classes, either PPC or Organic, depending upon the attendees focus. I’ll defer to Amanda for the specifics, but that is ideally how I understand the program will run.

As far as speakers, I will say that Amanda has been in the industry since it started and has seen and heard almost all of who the industry has to offer. Amanda comes from the Academic world, being a professor in her previous life, and is familiar with creating learning objectives and teaching to those objectives. She not only has to find people that are knowledgeable and can communicate, but also people that can teach. Teaching a class towards specific learning objectives is very different than being on a panel discussion group with a 15 minute presentation. Many of the instructors for this certification either have the experience or the ability to do this. This is also why the DMA is taking the attendee evaluations very seriously.

If you have any questions about the DMA Certification, feel free to post them. If I can’t answer them, I’ll certainly get someone’s attention who can.

The other day, my friend Jennifer and I were having an argument discussion about what has really changed in the search optimization industry since the early days. Her contention was that content was the most important in the early days and links were fairly insignificant.

My counter to that argument, “Links have always been critical.”
Her counter was, “Well, yes; they were as important, but not to rankings.”

At least! I had her where I wanted her. We have always agreed that it’s not all about rankings. I was ready to throw that in her lap, but first a little background.

From the first days of building and marketing my websites back in 1996, I realized that the entire philosophy of search was built on three things; architecture, content, and links. Based on those three principles, not much has changed. Links may not have had the power to influence rankings “back in the day” but they did have significant power. Today, I hear advice from link builders that links should be built from a marketing perspective, e.g., Can this link benefit my site and being me visitors? Does it help my reputation?