Archives for February 2009

Family Marketing with Swiss Chalet

Swiss Chalet is a casual/family restaurant chain that has been serving Canadians for more than 50 years. Their first eatery opened in 1954 in downtown Toronto, and since then they have gone on to become one of the most recognizable names in Canada when it comes to fast food ideals with restaurant services.

They specialize in rotisserie chicken dishes, although they do offer other options as well. While I’m not a fan of the food personally (I find it pretty bland, although their burgers are pretty good), I am a fan of what they try to do when it comes to encouraging family life.

Their slogan is “Family Happens at Swiss Chalet”, and their current TV advertising campaign shows families either sitting at restaurants or eating home delivery. The message is that no matter how busy your day, family time is important and Swiss Chalet helps make that happen.

This week, starting today and ending on Friday February 20, they’re running a promotion called “Family Appreciation Week”. For every adult entree purchased, you can get a free kids meal up to the value of $5.99 for any kids under 12-year old. Swiss Chalet are advertising this deal through a special 4-page newspaper insert that also has puzzles and games for kids to play.

They’re also partnering with kid favourites like LEGO, TeleToon, Hubba Bubba and What’s Up Kids magazine to offer special promotions throughout the year.

I’m a huge fan of this kind of marketing. We get so wrapped up in both our online and offline communities and business needs that we often neglect those that matter the most. David Mullen offered a sombre reminder of this last week in a heartbreaking post.

What about you? Are you more attracted to companies that offer family-based marketing? Are there any businesses that you use because of their family ethics? Do you offer family marketing yourself? I’d love to hear about them.

Just Because

Today is Valentine’s Day. Sometimes, as we build our communities and friends online, we forget the intimate one-person community that is our rock and makes us who we are. So today, take the time out and be with the person that is your own personal community. The rest of us online will still be there when you get back.

For all the times I’ve forgotten my rock, I’m sorry. Today is for you.

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D E Alexander and 24/7 News Net Give New Meaning to Scum

I don’t often lose my temper but D.E. Alexander and his 24/7 News Net site brings new meaning to the word scum and lowlife. D.E. Alexander is allegedly an author and investigative journalist and 24/7 News Net is his alternative news site. Today, thanks to my close friend Gina, I learned that D.E. Alexander and his 24/7 News Net site is obviously happy to join the lines of human and media scum.

He has issued a press release of incredible poor taste – and I use the term press release very loosely – that is calling last night’s tragedy in Buffalo “The Friday the 13th Plane Crash”. D.E. Alexander then goes on to use the release as a reason to follow an alleged psychic who saw this happening. Funnily enough, the website of this *psychic* looks very similar to that of D.E. Alexander’s 24/7 News Net site – coincidence?

This is media and its lowest. This is nothing more than blatant capitalizing on tragedy for personal gain, notoriety, call it what you will. If D.E. Alexander thinks this is investigative journalism, he needs to think again.

If you look around D.E. Alexander’s site, you’ll see it has a Members Area where you can see “death pictures from the JFK assassination and Princess Diana.” This says all you need to know about 24/7 News Net and the *writer/journalist* that is D.E. Alexander.

It would appear that this may be a pseudonym, though, since going to Google brings up no results for D.E. Alexander. I wanted to contact him to ask about the release and his obvious lack of compassion and morality. No luck – and there’s no contact info on the 24/7 News Net website either.

There is some information about 24/7 News Net on WhoIs.net, that shows a registrant address in Philadelphia, with an admin address in Coral Springs, FL. Still, no contact number. Something to hide?

Tragedy happens all around us, as it did last night in Buffalo, and tragedy has to be reported. But using it in such an immoral and disgusting way – is there a place for that? Or is freedom of speech a given, regardless of how it’s used?

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A Matter of Black and White

: Image by dogsy via Flickr

Think of these names – Abraham Lincoln, Jesse Owens, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Muhammed Ali, Arthur Ashe and Barack Obama. What do they mean to you? Great sports people, politicians and public speakers/activists? Or people who, with others, fought to offer black people better opportunities and rights and encourage integration and equality?

So why are the messages still not getting through?

According to a survey by Lattimer Communications, as many as 86% African-American women say marketers don’t understand them.

86%.

The biggest complaint is that the companies reaching out to them aren’t really communicating with them. Industry culprits include banking/financial, healthcare/pharmaceutical, fast food and the automotive industries.

Consider that the US auto industry calls Detroit “home”, a predominantly black city with almost 82% of its residents African-American. If an industry can’t even get it right with people on its own front doorstep, what’s going wrong?

Is the marketing industry (along with many others) guilty of targeting certain demographics and hoping everyone else joins in? Why does more than 3/4 of a consumer audience feel left out and disenchanted with how they’re sold to?

Sadly, I don’t have the answers. But others do. And they need to look at why they’re alienating such a large number of customers, before someone else does. Barack Obama was swept in on a promise of change – it’s time companies started living up to that premise.

What are you doing to reach out and communicate?

Small Print, Big Noise

: Image by moirabot via Flickr

Suite 101 is a reasonably well-known consumer website that uses multi-national freelance writers to provide its content. The writers only get paid from revenue generated by ads and page views, so it’s generally up-and-coming writers that tend to provide the content.

Recently, an email was sent out to all the site’s writers about a competition that’s being run. Up for grabs are three prizes of $101 for three different writers.

All the site’s writers have to do is write about spring, and if their name is one of the three randomly chosen by the Editor, they’ll win the $101. Great incentive, right?

Not exactly – here’s where the small print about entry regulations offers a nice kick in the teeth.

Only writers published in February can enter (so if you wrote about spring in January already, tough).
You have to publish a minimum of five articles about spring. They also have to pass the editorial process, and if one of them needs editing, it’s discounted as one of the five.
Only writers from Canada (except Quebec), the United States or the United Kingdom can enter. Which seems bizarre, since the parent company of the site is German and it uses writers worldwide.

So, all of a sudden, the $101 is only for a select group of people (despite the great work that other writers on the site offer) and you need five “perfect-first-time” articles to qualify.

The minimum word count per article on this site is 300 words. You also need to provide your own images, search engine optimization and formatting. So, generally, an article could take an hour or two to write when coupled with research and tools needed. Suddenly that $101 doesn’t look so enticing, except for the website in question that gets a whole slew of new content to please its advertisers.

I’m sure they may feel that the small print covers their backs when it comes to how crappy this deal is. The problem with small print, though, is that if it’s too small then people start using magnifying glasses to read it. And when it’s magnified, small print can have a habit of coming back and biting you on the ass, especially if it’s perceived as unfair to the end user.

Your choice.

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