Tinsley and The Florida Keys & Key West Recognized for Outstanding Tourism Marketing

By Dorn Martell

We wouldn’t be lying if we said Henry Flagler hangs around our office. In fact we have a whole wall of “Henrys” and are pleased to announce that we just added three more to our collection.

Named for Henry Flagler, the Flagler Awards were established in 2000 to recognize outstanding tourism marketing in Florida and we are fortunate to have won every year since. In this year’s competition, we were finalists in four categories and won the top honor in three.

We won a Henry in the category of Resource/Promotional Material Consumer for our fabulous new LGBT Brochure, which compliments our Best of Show win at the Addys for our Gay and Lesbian marketing.

Our New York Transit poster campaign also won a Henry in the Out-Of-Home category for these memorable pieces: “You’re not a sardine, get out of this tin can”,
“Please step to the end of the line” and “Call in and say you caught something”.

For Print Advertising we won a Henry for these ads:
(For our fishermen) “Big eyes, full lips, drives men crazy. Angelina is that you?”
and “More fans than all of Facebook” (promoting our amazing reefs).

We also won Silver for our Direct Marketing pieces: “The Earth is your Recreational Vehicle”, and “There’s nothing like the end of the road to turn you around.”

We thank the Monroe County Tourist Development Council and its Director Harold Wheeler, for being great clients and allowing us to do the best tourism advertising around.

We’d also like to thank old Henry Flagler for building the railroad that connected the Keys to mainland America and brought paradise a little closer to home.

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It’s All About Recruits

by Dorn Martell

“We have 365 days of recruiting to do and we have thirty days to do it.”

Those were the marching orders we received, two days into the thirty-day recruiting window, from the University of Miami Athletic Department. New head Coach Al Golden had replaced beleaguered Head Coach Randy Shannon and was on a mission to build next year’s team – FAST!

The solution was a surgical strike, e-mail blast program, targeting the best High School players in the country. Each day prospective players would receive a new e-mail highlighting one of the many benefits of becoming a Hurricane. Our messages were short and simple, geared perfectly to students who are not impressed with long copy and old school communications.

The final blast of the program led prospects to BeACane.com, an interactive micro-site developed by Tinsley in just two weeks. At BeACane.com prospective players can opt-in by uploading a photo, entering their name, and choosing a number. The site then generates a composite image of the student wearing a Miami Hurricane uniform with their number of choice.

Signing day was a huge success! The Canes signed 16 new recruits, including eight who had committed to other schools and switched to Miami. “Gionna Paul probably is our favorite [story],” Miami coach Al Golden said. “He went from not wanting to talk to us to getting a “U” tattoo.” What could be a greater measure of success than getting your target audience to wear your brand for life!

For more details click here.

Look for more on the viral success of BeACane.com in the coming weeks.

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The End of Cold Calling

by Mark Slatko

I’m posting this article by Tim Williams on the death of cold calling, written a year ago. It’s a great article and has never been more relevant (he also wrote an article called “Evolve or die”). Interesting to note that his “multi-dimensional publicity plan” for agencies to market themselves doesn’t include Twitter. This is because, again, the article was written a year ago when Twitter was still an infant. I’m sure his list would have evolved to include Twitter today. The toolbox for agencies to market themselves has never been more full.

Ask any agency principal what he or she dislikes and avoids the most and the answer will almost always be the same: cold calling new business prospects. Not only is this the most dreaded activity among C-level agency executives, it’s also among the least effective.

Cold calling has always produced only modest results and today’s avoidance-enabling technology only makes it easier for prospects to hide from your phone calls and ignore your e-mails. I routinely hear from agency principals how traditional new business prospecting methods are becoming less and less effective.

Hard to reach

The dynamics that make it more difficult to reach a client’s prospective customers are the same forces that make it harder for agencies to reach their own prospective customers: media proliferation, multi-tasking, message overload, and short attention spans.

If you feel guilty for not spending enough time cold calling and cold e-mailing, here’s a really good excuse to stop: it doesn’t work.

A better alternative

Management genius Peter Drucker preached that a good marketing program makes sales irrelevant. Says Drucker, “The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous.” The aim of marketing is to make a product so relevant and compelling that it literally sells itself.

If you think this is mere hyperbole, consider the outrageously successful iPhone. Can you imagine ever seeing an iPhone salesman? Instead, eager customers are lined up in front of Apple and AT&T stores for hours.

If agencies spent more time and energy on making and marketing a relevant, differentiated “product” (their own agency), they could spend a lot less time and energy trying to sell it.

A multi-dimensional approach

Witness the hyper-successful Crispin Porter + Bogusky. Not only have they devoted themselves to making a differentiated product, but they have invested considerable time and money marketing the CP+B brand to the business community. Getting mounds of press – both offline and online – is the result of a concerted effort by a dedicated team of PR professionals whose only client is the agency.

Most of the agencies that constantly kick themselves for not devoting enough effort to “prospecting” are the same ones that have devoted below-average resources to marketing their own brand. That’s no coincidence.

In addition to focusing on the business press, entering the awards shows, and joining business organizations, the most progressive agencies have also engaged in an online conversation with both their peers and prospects. In place of a traditional PR plan, you need a multi-dimensional publicity plan that includes:

Search engine optimization (SEO) program
Postings and comments on relevant blogs
Search engine marketing (SEM) program based on keywords
Letters to the editor
(both offline and online)
Landing pages (based on owned URL’s)
Paid and reciprocal links
Listings in both paid and complimentary online directories
Wikipedia entry
Membership in relevant online professional networks
Facebook page
Participation in professional online forums
YouTube channel

The only limit is the amount of creativity you apply to marketing your own brand. So stop thinking sales and start thinking marketing, which starts with how your firm is positioned in the marketplace. Trade the time and money you spend “selling” your brand and invest it instead in differentiating and marketing your brand and you’ll get a much better return on your investment.

– Tim Williams, Ignition Consulting Group

True Blood Marketing

by Gio Gutierrez

HBO has set up many clever marketing angles for True Blood, and now that the show is such a hit, HBO is making a “real” version of the blood-substitute drink. It is designed to look like the beverage from the movie but tastes like blood orange soda and actually comes in different “blood types”.

We just received a 4-pack in perfect time for this weekend’s finale and the packaging’s great. We’ll be using these to celebrate in our way. Grinning Vampire Emoticon

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