Bon's Mots

Before I went back to school, I was an ac­count ex­ec­u­tive at a newswire. My job was to ad­vise clients on their com­mu­ni­ca­tions strate­gies, which is more ac­cu­rate than sim­ply say­ing, “I sold stuff.” I was never the ag­gres­sive, Glengarry Glen Ross-type of sales­per­son; my skills lay in de­vel­op­ing re­la­tion­ships with my clients, un­der­stand­ing their needs and pro­vid­ing them with the right prod­uct or ser­vice. I made sure each pro­posal was per­son­al­ized and meant some­thing to my client. 

Now that I’m on the other side of the ta­ble, I like to be treated the same way. So imag­ine my cha­grin when I re­ceived this today:

This is a life-size card­board cutout of a man named Dave, a VP from a mar­ket­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions agency I won’t name.

I’m not a mar­ket­ing ex­pert by any means, but it doesn’t take one to know when a pitch hits the right spot. It must be cre­ative, tar­geted and en­gag­ing. Because your goal is to at­tract at­ten­tion and cre­ate enough in­ter­est to make your au­di­ence take ac­tion that will add to your ROI – visit your web­site, ask for a meeting, buy your product.

While Cardboard Dave cer­tainly at­tracted my (and my cowork­ers’) at­ten­tion and cre­ated in­ter­est, the ac­tion I took was prob­a­bly not what he had in mind. Case in point: Cardboard Dave un­der­went a Sharpie makeover.

Here is why I think Dave’s pitch failed:

• There was no one wait­ing at the re­cep­tion desk to greet me and hand the pack­age to me per­son­ally - it was a ditch and run.
• The pack­age was very large and bulky. I had to carry it up two flights of stairs to my desk and al­most knocked some­one over. Furthermore, my work­space is not very spa­cious so I don’t know where I’ll keep Cardboard Dave.
• The only part of the pack­age with my name on it was the mail­ing la­bel on the wrap­per. There was no let­ter ad­dressed to me; all I got was a snazzy, em­bossed book­let placed in a slot where Cardboard Dave’s hands are. There is noth­ing per­sonal about it.
• Cardboard Dave promises “favourable im­pres­sions” and “bet­ter re­call” of my organization’s mes­sage. It would have been more en­gag­ing if their spiel demon­strated some un­der­stand­ing of the ODA’s key mes­sages. And if they did some re­search, they would have known that while I do wield some in­flu­ence, I am not the decision-maker of my team.
• There is a page in the book­let list­ing the as­so­ci­a­tions Dave’s com­pany has “been as­so­ci­ated with.” I’m a sucker for se­man­tics — has this or­ga­ni­za­tion ac­tu­ally worked for these as­so­ci­a­tions? I once do­nated money to the Canadian Cancer Society, so tech­ni­cally, I can say I was “as­so­ci­ated” with them.
• The last page bears Dave’s sig­na­ture and in­for­ma­tion, and has an un­usual, if slightly creepy, closing:

I’d like to give you a call
In a cou­ple of days
To see what you think.

Or for pickup. : )  (I’m still try­ing to fig­ure out what THAT means.)

Overall, these are my im­me­di­ate impressions:

• The com­pany must be do­ing well in this econ­omy to spend $200 for each card­board cutout and book­let, which is what I es­ti­mated the pack­age to cost. Are they go­ing to re­coup their print­ing costs through their fees? Because as­so­ci­a­tions are not-for-profit; we an­swer to our mem­bers and have to ac­count for every sin­gle cent we spend.
• How many trees were felled to make Cardboard Dave?
• Dave’s ego is so big (“How big is it?”), it can’t fit on a stan­dard busi­ness card.
• It would have been more cost-effective, and a nicer touch, if 3D Dave had per­son­ally come to my of­fice and spoke to me di­rectly, in­stead of send­ing his card­board representative. Chances are he would have got­ten a meet­ing. Sometimes, tried and true tac­tics trump snazzy packaging.

I’ll give Dave points for cre­ativ­ity and chutz­pah. But like his one-dimensional coun­ter­part, this pitch has left me stiff.

What do you think?