Marketing is the art of creating and telling unique stories that create conversations. Advertising is about paying for attention. On occasion good advertising can tell interesting stories thus making good advertising good marketing.
TalkTalk are a UK provider of telephone and broadband services. It’s difficult for them to create unique stories because they are a highly commoditised business. There aren’t a lot of unique stories to present to the market to create buzz so instead they spend millions on advertising sponsoring TV hit shows like the X-Factor.
Recently however, TalkTalk issued a press release that said they would pay selected house owners £250 to change the name of their house to Talk Talk. You can choose:
· TalkTalk Towers
· TalkTalk Mansions
· TalkTalk@ (eg TalkTalk@37 Acacia Avenue)
· The TalkTalk House
· The TalkTalk Home
This is hardly the same as sponsoring the Emirates Stadium for £100m but what it does do is create lots of local small-scale conversations. The cost to TalkTalk is incidental in comparison to the buzz they create. I think this is true creative marketing and alongside their advertising, gives them the right to claim to be innovators in marketing.
Take Ryanair’s marketing as the alternative to this type of creative thinking. In a recent report by the Office of Fair Trading they were criticised by John Fingleton, the Chairman of the OFT, for exploiting a loophole in the law that allowed them to advertise rates without including the credit card fees.
In response to the allegations, Ryanair took the opportunity to repeat their same mantra about being a low cost airline. This is a typical Ryanair PR response to negative publicity but it does create a buzz and water cooler conversations about their brand, albeit controversial. This is an exact quote from Ryanair’s Head of Communications, Stephne McNamara “Ryanair is not for the overpaid John Fingletons of this world but for the everyday Joe Bloggs who opt for Ryanair’s guaranteed lowest fares because we give them the opportunity to fly across 26 European countries for free, £5 and £10.”
Why the BBC published this ‘ad’ verbatim is unknown. The response doesn’t address the allegations set before them and has no context to the article. Nonetheless it is the same subtext told often using different stories.
In the online world it is easier than ever to create positive buzz. We have established networks and easy conduits to getting our message out via social networks and email marketing. The hard part is always coming up with the creative idea, response or creating the correct marketing mix. As these examples show however, it need not be expensive.
