Beth Negus

One of the great things about going on vacation is it gives me a chance to look at marketing from the eye of a relaxed consumer, and listen to what other consumers—namely my kids—think about campaigns they see.

During our week in Maine, our eyes were looking skyward when we saw a small plane pulling a banner advertising the $3.99 ham and eggs breakfast special at Rosa Linda’s in Saco, ME.

My seven-year-old son was curious about the ROI of this marketing effort. Or more specifically, he wanted to know (a) what it cost to have a plane fly your message over the beach every single day, (b) why this restaurant wanted people to know what their breakfasts cost, when we always seemed to be closer to lunchtime when the banner flew over, and (c) why did people eat ham for breakfast? more

Consumers in the market for a greeting card will flip through card after card after card on the racks, looking for the one with just the right sentiment.

Hallmark went through pretty much the same process when it came to compiling a list of mommy bloggers to connect with at the recent BlogHer ‘10 conference in New York.

The retailer threw an early Christmas themed party at an off-site penthouse that was invitation only. For Hallmark, said Deidre Mize, national campaign manager, it was a chance to engage with bloggers and get to know them personally.

“We put out a call on Twitter,” she said. “Some of the bloggers we had worked with before, while others were identified by looking at not just their traffic levels but their content and tone—while snarky is fun, it might not work with Hallmark’s brand.”

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There’s no doubt about it: Brands were out to pick up chicks at the BlogHer ‘10 conference in New York last week, and their technique was in no way subtle.

Not that this was a bad thing, mind you. The chicks—a.k.a. women bloggers of any stripe imaginable—had no problem with being courted by marketers hoping to get the army of women of blogging every day to write about their products.

The brand immersion started with breakfast and didn’t stop. Tropicana sponsored the morning spread, which reportedly featured Bruce Jenner pouring OJ. My train didn’t get me into NYC early enough to eyeball this myself, but I did get a glimpse of what seemed like enough breakfast pastry to feed every blogger on the Internet, let alone the Hilton.

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I’ve been thinking about a topic covered over at the BlogHer site last week. Do you unfriend someone on Facebook after they die?

The topic is a bit of a personal morbid fascination of late, but it could also have implications for marketers as well.

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Sometimes, direct mail can drive a consumer to make a purchase. Other times, it just makes them go “hmmmmmmm.”

Two pieces I received this month from Comcast and Bliss are prime examples of the latter.

Comcast recently sent me yet another mailing plugging its Xfinity rebranding. (Now, overall, the Xfinity rebranding itself makes me go hmmmmmm. As a Comcast customer in one of the “preferred” Xfinity areas, do I now get different, better services? Not that I can tell. And do the folks in non-Xfinity areas have lousy cable/Internet/phone since they’re not under the Xfinity rainbow? Hmmm.)

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In the past, I’ve written happily and proudly about the fact that I’m a major comic book geek. And like most fans of comics, I love to see people get introduced to the medium. That’s why we love Free Comic Book Day so much, because it gets newbies into the shops (well, we also like getting free stuff too).

Bluewater Publishing, which puts out a line of biographical comics called “Female Force”—profiling a diverse range of women such as Hillary Clinton and Lady Gaga—has expanded its market presence by getting its books sold in Jo-Ann Fabrics.

It’s an interesting tactic—and one that got me thinking that marketers in general should be looking more outside their comfort zone.

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