Sign Stealing, Marketing Stealing, and Stealin' When Ya Shoulda Been Buyin'
That'll make sense after you read this (or listen to Uriah Heep)
Hello Gobbledeers,
How’s it going? I would just like to point out that I’m not sure anything more exemplifies gobbledy than whatever the NCAA’s rules are around how football coaches acquire the signs used by other NCAA football coaches. (Sign stealing is legal, but where you steal the signs from might be a violation?). Wow, those Michigan fans are annoying…
Speaking of Stealing…
Maybe you’ve had this conversation with your CEO:
CEO: Hey [insert name here], How was your weekend?
You: It was good. Drove the kids to soc-
CEO: That was rhetorical. Anyway, my daughter’s boyfriend works for a hedge fund and his intern saw a little video that our competitor Birdseed.ai posted and shared it with my future son-in-law and he shared it with me while we were playing golf this weekend, and I think it’s great.
You: Oh, well I haven’t seen that yet, but I’ll definitely check it out.
CEO: I’ve seen the videos that your team has made, and I just think they aren’t really explaining what we do as clearly as these videos do.
You: I’m looking forward to seeing them.
CEO: I’ve been thinking about it, and the easiest way to make our videos as clear and well-explained as Birdseed.ai’s is to have our agency make the same video, but change the colors in the video to be our colors. They shouldn’t use Birdseed.ai’s colors - that would be confusing. They should use ours, and our branding.
You: I’m sure we can work with the agency to come up with some options for videos that explain what we do just as well - no, even better - than the videos that your daughter’s boyfriend’s intern found. I have no doubt.
CEO: I have complete faith in you. And the best way to do that is to have the agency take the videos that Birdseed.ai has done, and make us exactly the same video, only using our colors.
You: I’m going to go open that knitting shop I’ve always dreamed about.
(And…scene.)
If your CEO has never come out and told you explicitly to just go and copy your competitor’s video, your CEO is not the CEO of Chicago-based Blue Crates Storage.
Blue Crates recently lost a lawsuit filed by its competitor Doorage, who accused Blue Crates of copying their videos, causing consumer confusion in the Chicagoland storage market. (If you’re interested, that link contains a thorough legal explanation about why it’s illegal to take a competitor’s video and change the colors.)
One reason they accused Blue Crates of doing that is because Blue Crates CEO sent an email to its marketing agency where he said that:
"The videos from Doorage are a great example of what we are looking to do .... We would like to do the same .... [I]f you recreate this [Doorage video] with better imagery, we are on the right track.”
And then:
Doorage “does a good job explaining how things work,” and directed the agency to “recreate the linked video exactly as it is with our branding." The CEO told the agency that he was looking for something that was “a very close replica of the linked video above from Doorage,” and that all the agency needed to do was “change the color scheme to Blue Crates' and brand it and we should be good to go.”
On the one hand, “copy that video, but change the colors” is better creative direction than I’ve ever received from a CEO.
On the other hand…um. Let’s go back to the first hand. Seriously, how much would most of you pay to get that kind of direction from your boss? Even illegal advice like that is better than “The video needs to capture the mission AND the vision of Birdseed.ai and show how our proprietary algorithm will improve operational thruput by more than 17% while also being reflective of the essence of Seeders around the globe.” Or whatever.
(If you were wondering, you can see Doorage’s video here, and Blue Crates’ video here. They’re similar, and they’re both the type of explainer video we used to see everywhere 5 years ago.)
(Thanks to longtime Gobbledy subscriber Willie J. for the link.)
Continuous Digital Transformation Is a Must
ChatGPT, write me a landing page for my advertising campaign, but make sure it sounds like Jared’s favorite clip of Miss Teen South Carolina answering why kids can’t find the US on a world map, a clip he has promised he would limit to mentioning in Gobbledy once a year, even though he would like to talk about it every week:
Governments and federal branches.
How Much for the Tragedy Bracelet?
This isn’t exactly a marketing thing (exactly), but am I the only person who thinks the caption on the photo from a WSJ article about Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ struggle with breast cancer is a little bit, uh, I don’t even know what…
“Hi, is this Harry Winston?”
“Yes. How may I help you?”
“I was interested in the bracelet I saw in the Wall Street Journal article. Specifically, the price of it.”
“Hm…can you tell me which bracelet that is? We’ve been featured in several articles recently.”
“Oh yes, it’s the one about how Julia Louis-Dreyfus cried hysterically when she found out she had breast cancer. I liked her bracelet.”
—
I know that on some level “all press is good press,” but also maybe all press isn’t good press?
Years ago back at Hilfiger I was in a meeting with the head of marketing, and she was telling a story about working for Giorgio Armani. She was a junior PR person at that point and she was sharing credits Armani received in fashion magazines, and showed him one that said, “Socks, Giorgio Armani, $50.” She said, “we got a great credit in Vogue.” And he said, “That’s not a credit, those are socks.”
I always think of that when someone is excited about a bit of marketing that isn’t as great as they think it is. It’s not marketing, it’s socks.
As always, thanks for reading (and for reading to the bottom! I made this a little shorter this week with the hope that you’d make it here. Welcome!). The bottom is the best part. Read to the bottom. I’m always happy to chat about your marketing concerns - here’s my Calendly link. It’s free. I promise.
Or you can certainly shoot me an email by hitting reply…
Jared had me at "it's just socks." best marketing lookie-loo ever. cannot stop giggling.
The Blue Crate story is a great example of why picking up the phone is still a great idea in 2023 :) The pageant video NEVER gets old - especially Mario keeping a straight face. Thanks for making me laugh with the opening dialogue - you had me at "drove the kids to soc-"