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The Little Gopher That Could: How Being Not So Normal Paid Off Big

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Humans are competitive by nature. Throughout history, as a species, we’ve been competing in one way or another whether that’s with each other or nature. So it came as no surprise to us when one of our clients – Princeton Mini – approached us and said that they “had to” win a regional OEM contest being held in conjunction with a national sales event, and enlisted our assistance.

The “Not So Normal” sales event held by Mini was designed to advertise the exceptionally high gas mileage that Mini Coopers have. The contest itself was between the dealerships and they were given little guidance other than being creative and not so normal.

The dealership already had a huge head-start in the contest deciding on building a custom-made miniature golf course (Mini golf course, get it?). The employees themselves built this very creative and elaborate 9-hole course spending their own free time to do so. The contest was to culminate in a dealership event promoting the “Not So Normal” sale and was to be judged by the regional representatives from Mini via pictures and videos of the event.

After brainstorming with the General Manager, Robert Ogust, we came up with a “Caddyshack” theme to build up on the miniature golf course they had created. We scripted out the video based on scenes from the classic movie and incorporated the infamous gopher and make the event even less “normal”. The plot was that the gopher was going to infiltrate the dealership and they needed to get rid of it.

We attended the event and filmed the scenes needed with the employees playing the various roles and to photograph the event. The dealership really went all out for this event. It was very apparent that they had put a lot of time and effort into it. They had given each golf hole Mini-inspired name such as Mini Mulligan, Fore Wheel Drive and Cooper Chute. The employees were all wearing these, for lack of better words, not so normal golf costumes. They had music playing, catered food (including a chocolate fountain), a bounce house and even threw in some large, stuffed sumo wrestling outfits at the end. They were even successful in getting customers to participate in doing some “not so normal” things on camera!

The event was a great success with everyone attending – from employees to customers – having a great time and the dealership making sales. In the end, Princeton Mini ended up winning the contest. Instead of keeping the $3500, the staff at MINI decided to donate their winnings to the Red Cross to help the many people in NJ impacted by Hurricane Sandy. Princeton MINI’s generosity was matched by their parent company, Asbury Automotive Group, and MINI for a total donation to the Red Cross of $10,500.

It goes to show what a little imagination, commitment, elbow grease and fun can earn you. Sometimes it pays to be “not so normal”… and have a pet gopher.

…and if you’d like to see the fun video, you can check it out by clicking here!

Originally published in the January 2013 edition of the 3 Birds Marketing newsletter

“The Badge King” Contest

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(Follow the contest via this blog post (which will be updated in real-time as badge pictures are received) and the conversation by watching hashtag #badgeking on Twitter)

StandingsBadges Submitted
1. Todd Smith 21
2. Tim Jackson 19

The gauntlet has been thrown. The challenge has been accepted. The prize is set. The game is on.

The “Badge King” is a contest where the contenders will race to collect as many meeting & conference badges as possible. Why? Just because. You see, both contenders are prolific speakers and avid travelers. They have special hot-lines to the airlines, at hotels they are VIPs, restaurants have tables saved just for them… heck, they would bump movie stars out of first class.
Have you seen that movie “Up In The Air“, you know, the one with George Clooney. There’s a scene in it where Ryan (George Clooney) and Alex (Vera Farmiga), who are both frequent travelers, empty their pockets, wallets and purses in a race to compare who had the highest standing on airlines, rental car companies, and hotels via loyalty cards. This is kind of like that…except it’s two guys and it’s about conferences and meetings. Their “frequent flyer” cards are badges.. and they’re throwing them on the table trying to see who has the biggest… uh.. never mind.
The Rules:
  1. Only “official” printed meeting and conference badges count. Name tags that say “Hello, My name is” etc. do not. (If they counted then they’d all just sit in their offices and write their names on bulk boxes of name tags..or more likely make their staff do it).
  2. Pictures must be taken of the badges and e-mailed to me, Arnold Tijerina. They both know my e-mail address so there’s no excuses!
  3. Dates of the contest: January 1, 2011 through December 31, 2011. (Yeah, they wanted to backdate it.. wusses)
The Contenders:
Tim W. Jackson – President of the Colorado Auto Dealers Association
Todd Smith – CEO of ActivEngage
The Prize: 


*Donated to a charity chosen by the winner

Who do you think will win?
[UPDATE 1/17/12: Tim Jackson and Todd Smith have agreed to make the contest a TIE and both donate money.]

How to: Turn Your Facebook Fans Into Spammers

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Businesses are constantly trying to generate word-of-mouth
and increase their exposure in social media via promotions. Promotions are an
effective way of increasing eyeballs and, perhaps, generating new customers, if
done right.

If done WRONG, it can actually do the opposite. What do I
mean by that?

This is how I’ve seen promotions being run lately and the
thought process that I suspect went along with it.

  1.  I want exposure or new customers.
  2. I’m going to hold a giveaway or contest via
    Facebook.
  3. I’m going to enlist my existing fans or customers to spread my message.
  4. To do that, I’m going to require them to “share” my message with their social network. The more they share, the greater the likelihood that they will win.
  5. By doing this, my message will be shared with, hopefully, a lot of people and my business will gain exposure that meets or exceeds the value of the prize(s) being awarded.

There’s a couple of problems with this thought process for
both the business and the fans of that business.

First, requiring your fans to “share” on Facebook is against
their Terms of Service . To be precise, it clearly states that:

“Section 2.1:  You will not condition entry to
the promotion upon taking any other action on Facebook, for example, liking a
status update or photo, commenting on a Wall, or uploading a photo.”

Second, by encouraging
your existing fans to repeatedly share your message by rewarding them to do
that, your fans run the risk of alienating members of their social network. By
alienating their “friends”, they run the risk of being “unfriended” or, at the
very least, hidden. If your “fans” are hidden or “unfriended”, their social
graph decreases making the sharing
of your message less effective not
to mention the detrimental effect it will have on your fans by decreasing their
reach.

You know this is true.
Think “Mafia Wars” or “Farmville”. How many people have you “unfriended” or
hidden because of their continuous sharing of these social games’ content? How
many dealers have you unfriended or hidden because, despite everything we say, they continue to post their inventory continuously online?

The third aspect of this
is that most businesses open their contests up to everyone, not just their
customer base. I’ve heard of plenty of dealership vendors and/or people who would otherwise never do business with
a company entering and winning a Facebook promotion. It’s just as easy to “unlike”
a business Facebook page after the contest ends as it is to “like” it in the
first place.

The fourth problem is
that, just because your business is holding a contest or promotion on Facebook,
it doesn’t exempt you from your state’s laws regarding contests and promotions.
In example, California has strict laws dictating how you must run a promotion
including mandatory disclosures. Just because the winner of your contest may
not be in California doesn’t exempt you from your state’s laws.

Acura started a
promotion called “Compete Like A Pro last week. On their Facebook page, these
are the exact words:

“All you have to do is work your social network as hard as your
quads to earn the most votes. Spread the word on your wall, send friends an
email – do whatever it takes to let people know how serious you are about your
action sport.”

Buick, on the other
hand, also has a social media promotion called “Quest for the Keys”. Their promotion doesn’t involve
spamming your friends anywhere. It involves participation by the contestants to
“find” keys that are hidden in various US cities. To gather clues, you (as a
participant) must pay attention to their various social network assets. Now you
have people regularly monitoring and visiting your various social networks and,
most importantly, not annoying the hell out of their friends. 

Finally, you have to
consider the message you are sending. A contest going on right now being run by
Grant Cardone is wrong on so many levels.

Let’s analyze WHY.

First, it violates Facebook’s Terms of Service.

Second, anyone who wants
to win is REQUIRED to spam their friends by posting on Facebook and Twitter. (I
don’t have a problem with the YouTube component because, while you have to
create a creative YouTube video promoting the contest, it doesn’t appear that
you are required to share it to increase your chances of winning (although I
could be wrong)). You may argue that it’s not required but let’s be honest here, the premise of the contest is that you score points by sharing on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks. If you don’t share, you don’t score points which means you can’t win. This pretty much means that, to participate in the contest, and have a chance at winning, you are required to spam your friends.

Third, the contest is in
violation of promotion and contest LAWS of the State of California as, at  the very least, it doesn’t contain the proper
disclosures. Now I’m not a lawyer but these laws carry not only civil
penalties, but also criminal ones.

I’m not even going to embed these videos into this post but, if you haven’t seen them, here are the links:

Grant Cardone Social Media Contest – Win $10,000

Grant Cardone Social Media Contest – Win $10,000 Part II

The final, and maybe most important, is simple.

What message are you
sending to people when the “Grand Prize” is $10,000 in “store credit” OR an
iPad (Retail value approximately $500) OR $500 cash. Second prize is $5,000 in “store
credit” or $250 cash.

Maybe it’s just me but
it “seems” that $10,000 of his training material just got equated to $500 cash.
I’m sure that he doesn’t really “want” anyone choosing the iPad or cash, that
would be the ultimate snub. That being said, why on earth would you even plant
the SEED of that idea in your customer’s minds?

Third place is… wait for
it.. a set of steak knives. Of course, if you don’t want the steak knives, he
has also offered the third place winner a $100 bill with a personal message on it
that he won from his twin brother. Check it out.

Note: Since he began the
promotion, he has since censored out the “message” written on the $100 bill within the video. Guess he thought it was a bad idea after the fact. Luckily, I preserved it.

In the second video (on
the day the promotion started), his message to his fans was the following:

“.. or I will give you
this hundred with a personal message to you.. a personal 2011 message.”

Well, if his personal
message to “me” (seeing as I’m a fan) is what is written on the $100 bill from
the first video, that’s plain insulting. Now, I know Grant personally. I’ve
always supported him and sincerely like his training materials. Lately,
however, some of his messages have contained material or comments that I find
offensive. Being from the car business, I’m pretty thick-skinned and have heard
(and participated in) plenty of swear words.

I can certainly tell you
that I have NEVER sworn in front of any customer and I certainly have NEVER
delivered any message similar to the one Grant wants to “personally” deliver to one lucky “fan”, who is, in fact, his customer.

If that’s what you want
to tell me, I only have one thing to say… right back at you.

[Update 1/19: Day three of the contest brings another level that is the fun of getting my fans to spam their friends and, this time, it’s via E-MAIL! Yes, I’m so ready to upload my contact list into your system so that I can spam everyone I know. Video here: Grant Cardone Contest – Emailing Contacts ]

Disclaimer: In this rant (yeah, it’s a rant), I’m not trying to
imply that Grant’s material has no value. On the contrary, I used his material
to help me sell a lot of cars and make a ton of money. I’ve always been a fan
of his and recommended his material to anyone that asked me. I’ve helped him
spread his message and assisted him personally in social media when he’s asked
me to. The purpose of this rant WAS, however, to not only warn businesses of
some of the dangers inherent in running a Facebook promotion wrong, but to
call Grant out on his ridiculous contest. I’m not holding back here and I’m
sure this won’t be appreciated but it’s a message that people need to hear..
especially Grant Cardone. 

Of course, this is all my opinion. I’ll let you decide whether you agree with me or not.

Podcast Episode Beta: Intro to Facebook Pages

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Hi everyone. Despite the rumors, I have not fallen off the edge of the
Earth. I have taken a position and have been working secretly making the
universe …. uh, well, I’ve been working. All will be revealed soon.
My blog, on the other hand, has been my red-headed step-child and I’ve
neglected him.

This podcast is the first podcast I’ve ever made.
It’s an introduction to Facebook Pages and includes some great tips that will
be new to novices and some veterans.

It is numbered “beta” because it
was also a test of quality, functionality and efficiency of many things –
software, hosting, microphone, etc.

It was unscripted and fairly
free-flowing so I hope you enjoy it and gain some insight into Facebook
Fan Pages. Your feedback is much appreciated.

Was it too long? too short?
Was the sound quality good?
Was it informative?
Was it easy to access and listen to?

Thanks in advance and enjoy!

Click the “Play” button.

Played: 20 | Download | Duration: 00:12:01

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