5 Reasons Why Dr Pepper 10 Failed

By now, you’ve probably heard about the Dr. Pepper 10 fiasco. The short version is that Dr. Pepper launched Dr. Pepper 10 trying to specifically market it for men, to the point that the tag line is, “It’s not for women.” Here’s 5 reasons why they fail.

1) Dr. Pepper fails at trying to replicate the success that Old Spice had with Isaiah Mustafa. The difference here is that Old Space was marketing to men by speaking to the women, and telling the women that their men aren’t the man they their man could be. Dr. Pepper 10 is marketing to men by speaking to men, but talking down to women. Bad move.

The Old Spice Guy and Me at Radian6 Social 2011

2) Dr. Pepper fails at trying to reach out to women. Sure they’re not trying to reach out to women through this ad, but I’m sure that Dr. Pepper 10 was developed because Diet Dr. Pepper’s primary market is women. I’m sure they’ll see declines in Diet Dr. Pepper’s sales to women as well.

3) Dr. Pepper even fails at trying to reach out to men. I’m not sure I know any men that drive around in the rainforest shooting lasers, but what about men that enjoy cross stitch, flower arrangement, or cooking? Are they not men too?

4) Dr. Pepper fails in playing the gender card.

“I suspect this is an example of where human insight counts? Diets = transgender. Fashion = transgender. taste = transgender. Gender targetting only seems to be relevant if selling fem hygiene products and PSA tests these days? Not that obtuse… I get the whole yummy mummy factor, but I can’t figure out why a main stream soda brand would play gender card.” @kcraft on twitter

5) Dr Pepper Irony Fail? On the flip side, Jim Edwards on BNET says that:

I hope Dr Pepper does not cancel its interesting new campaign for Dr Pepper…Even though the launch ad features a guy laser-fighting and snake wrestling his way through a jungle while criticizing romantic comedies…This campaign isn’t a chauvinist throwback. It’s a wry commentary on the marketing truism that men often don’t choose diet drinks. The ad virtually shouts its sarcasm — at one point the Schwarzenegger stand-in shouts “catchphrase!”

Edwards even goes on to compare it to British Chocolate bar Yorkie, who’s tagline is “Its Not For Girls.”

Does this mean that it’s ok? Does this mean that Yorkie’s campaign was perfectly fine? I don’t think so.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

Google Plus: 1269% Traffic Increase Threatens LinkedIn

Google Plus opened its doors to the public a couple weeks ago, and has already seen a 1,269% increase in traffic, according to Experian Hitwise, a market research company. The 15 million hits to the site are still nowhere near the traffic of facebook, who passed google for largest share of screentime with users last month, but it was enough to include Google Plus within the top 10 social networks (for scale, Facebook had 1.8 billion hits).

The traffic surge is enough to position Google Plus to set its sights on networks like MySpace and Linked In. In fact, Global Equities Research has downgraded LinkedIn’s shares from “overweight” to “equal weight” and its forecasts from 8 cents earnings per share to 4 cents. “The brokerage said it reduced its estimates for LinkedIn to reflect probable revenue share loss to Google+ in the hiring and marketing solutions categories.” according to the article.

Between LinkedIn, Google Plus, and facebook, LinkedIn does seem to be the easiest target, with a slow innovation rate, and few third-party developer created features. Some analysts have seen that Google Plus users have already ported LinkedIn networks into Google Plus circles, further signaling a likely LinkedIn demise. 

What will actually happen remains to be seen, but Google Plus has definitely made permanent and noticeable waves in the social media arena. What do you think will happen? Let us know in the comments below. 

The Number 1 Secret To Social Media and SEO Success

You’ve bitten the bullet and started your Facebook page, and have even ventured into Twitter, but your networks are not engaging or they’re not responding to posts. You take time to create interesting posts and facts related to your industry or your target market, but your posts aren’t commented on, and fan count doesn’t rise. What can you do if it seems like all you hear in your social efforts are crickets?

The number one secret to Social Media – the gold at the end of the leprechaun’s rainbow is…

CONTENT.

This includes all kinds of content including Facebook posts and tweets, but the more in-depth, the better. If you don’t have a blog and a YouTube account, you are missing out on the largest piece of the Social Media puzzle. Blogs and videos give your audience a richer experience, and an opportunity to engage with your network on a much more intimate level, and will create an audience that will return for more information on a regular basis.

What would be more likely to engage or attract a customer for an investment firm: a Facebook post about European markets taking a plunge last week, or a blog post on the top 5 ways to avoid being impacted by the downturn. What is more impactful – a tweet that you should install radiant barrier in your attic to save energy, or a YouTube video showing you how to do it?

You don’t need to add blog posts and videos daily. If you can only do it every two weeks, or once a month, that’s fine. Just don’t set up a blog or YouTube channel never to return again! Once you create blog posts and videos, that’s not the end of the story. That’s what you can share on Facebook and Twitter – you share your deeper richer content through the same channels that you’re already on, and you’ll build communities within these other networks, as well as building a closer relationship with your Facebook and Twitter communities.

Both a blog and YouTube channel are easy to set up. If you have a google account, YouTube and Blogger accounts can be easily set up. Alternatives include WordPress among others. Look for a blog article shortly about the pros and cons of each blog platform!

Top 4 Reasons to Implement Social Media Marketing at Your Business

Here are just some of the top reasons that Social Media Marketing will benefit your company:

1) Develop a dialogue with your customers: Sure you might know who your most regular customers are, but are they your most vocal supporters (or detractors)? By opening social media channels for your organization, you’re able to create a forum for discussion in a place that you can control. By having readily accessible facebook pages or twitter feeds, it provides an alternative to customers looking to vent rather than in a forum like Google Places or Yelp, where you’re less able to respond to criticism. Customer service via social media is often expected, and frequent communication with customers can increase customer loyalty.

2) Build your fanbase: Once you begin to amass a following on your social media channels, friends of your network can begin to take notice. If followers within your network mention you or your services, their comments will post on their friends’ feeds, and may help to increase some brand recognition for your company. Even if your fans do not mention you, you’re able to advertise directly to friends of your facebook fans. This means that ads to non-fans will appear with their friends who are fans of yours. Here’s an example to the left.

3) Social Media channels provide excellent SEO: Google says that links presented on facebook or twitter pages are no-followed, meaning that links that you add to your social media sites are not directly used as indicators of your website’s importance. This isn’t to say, though, that they don’t help in other ways. Social Media sites often show up in search directly, often on the first page, and can help influence customers’ perceptions of your company’s openness and willingness to communicate directly with customers.

4) See what the competition is doing: With social media accounts established, it’s quite easy to build lists and follow competitor’s accounts and find out some of their promotions or sales, hear about new product announcements or changes in management, and more.

Social Media and Online Marketing Services in Houston

Quantum Mass Media is a Houston-based social media and online marketing group specializing in creating and optimizing your company’s online presence.

We are able to work closely with your organization to analyze your core marketing message and transfer it to a social media and online platform, including initial strategy creation, account setup, and content development for social platforms.

In addition, we have experience in working with your organization to find out what type of social media interaction your employees or executives should have on behalf of your company and codify this into an official policy. 

We are also able to set up google places (listingon google maps), paid google, bing, or facebook advertising, blog creation andwriting, and search engine optimization for websites.

Please let me know you feel that your organization could bebetter represented online or in the social media space, or if you might haveanyone in your network you can refer me to. I appreciate it!