The average price of an iPhone game is less than $1.50. That buys very few things these days. You can’t get a cup of Starbucks coffee for $1.50. The iTunes Store culture is one of low prices. This precedent was set by Apple’s own pricing of music at $.99 a song. This is the price most App Store customers are accustomed to.

This might make sense for music where a CD traditionally cost $15 – $20 so the average price per song is about $.99. Take away the cost of producing CD’s, cases, and the label’s cut and the artist is probably better off. Games have traditionally had double digit prices depending on it’s platform and scale. PopCap sells Plants vs Zombies as a PC downloadable for $19.95. The same game on the App Store is $2.99.

When Super Monkey Ball was released on the iPhone, it came with a $9.99 price tag. It is now $3.99 and the price range for high quality premium games have settled to around $6.

While the low expected price of games on the App Store is a problem for game developers, there is little good in complaining about it. The initial rush to iPhone game development was spearheaded by hobbyists and small game companies that had low costs and seemingly infinite upside. Almost any game could have succeeded by just being available on the App Store. Times have changed and the pricing strategies have to change with it.

The $.99 price point is not going to work for 99% of game developers. The quality bar has been raised so high that it is impossible to break even at $.99. Losing money on every game you make is the fastest way to no longer be in the business of making games. The App Store is not exempt from traditional pricing strategies.

Virtually every pricing strategy that has ever been developed in marketing apply to the App Store as they do to the sale of all products and services.

Competitive Pricing

The simplest and most logical pricing strategy is competitive pricing. This means you are going to set a price similar to or exactly the same as competitors in the market. This has been the predominant strategy applied across the board in the App Store.

Smart marketers who use this strategy don’t apply it across the industry. You will notice that not every beer is priced the same or every shampoo, detergent, orange juice, deodorant, etc. This is because each product is not the same. There are some products that are virtually identical and in those cases, you either need to differentiate or you match prices. Generally speaking, when a customer has to choose from two identical products, price is going to be the determining factor.

Cost/Economy Pricing

Cost pricing is coming up with a price based on your cost to produce plus a suitable mark up. This is a strategy that generally ignores the prices set by competitors in the market and is derived solely based on the company’s cost structure and goals. If each product costs $5 to make and you want a $2 profit on each sale, you would set a price of $7.

Loss Leader

A loss leader is a product that sells at a loss to spur customers to buy other higher priced items. This is usually done to bring customers to a store hoping they will also buy other things. Big chain stores do this often in their circulars and usually only have a limited amount of the advertised product.

Penetration Pricing

Penetration pricing is usually used to break into a new market or gain market share. Prices are set lower to attract customers and then raised later once significant market share has been gained. This happens a lot in cable TV where companies offer a low price for 6 months and then changes to the regular price thereafter.

Premium Pricing

This is the general pricing strategy for high end luxury items. This is also the most desirable pricing strategy as it has the highest profit potential. It is also the hardest to achieve because the product needs to be seen as highly unique in the eyes of the consumers. This also happens to be the traditional pricing strategy for Apple. Their products are built with a unique design and experience that can command generally higher prices.

Price Skimming

Price skimming is the act of releasing a product at a relatively high price where only a small percent of the market is willing to afford it. This is usually because it is the only product of its kind at the time and competitors have not yet entered the market. Once more competitors offer the same or similar product, prices start to come down. This is the general pricing strategy in technology and electronic products like flat screen televisions.

Determining Price

There are literally tons of other pricing strategies and hybrids of each other. These are the basics for a general understanding of pricing. The best pricing strategy for the App Store is going to depend on the company and the products. EA’s pricing strategy is not going to be the same as a five man game company.

It would be safe to say that you do not want to price at $.99 as there is no where left to go after that and as more premium titles are released, $.99 is going to come to mean low quality. When you don’t know much about two similar products, the higher priced one is assumed to be the better one.

A pricing strategy should fit within an overall marketing strategy. It is impossible to come up with a good pricing strategy without knowing what the marketing goals are. Prices that are too high or too low can derail an entire marketing plan from achieving business objectives. Poor pricing can also make or break a business.

Luckily, in the App Store, prices can be easily and quickly changed. A poor price may not be terminal but, there are still lost profits at stake.

Know your product, marketing objectives, and then determine a price.

You can’t be everything to everyone. We are all uniquely different. Think of a close friend. What feelings come to mind? What words describe that friend? Now, think of another friend. What feelings come to mind? I bet you had distinctive feelings for both friends. That’s their brand.

Brands are like people. They take on personality traits and we like those traits or we don’t.

This means you are a brand. You evoke certain feelings when people think of you. The entirety of who you are, is your brand. Your beliefs, likes, dislikes, attitude, personality, style, etc. are all things that create you. These same things make up a company brand.

We all have distinct feelings about each of the top ten brands in 2009. Some brands you know better than others; some brands you like better than others. It’s no different than friends compared to acquaintances. Being everyone’s best friend is being no one’s best friend.

Building a brand for a game company is the same as for a car company, beverage company, restaurant, or any business. The major game companies don’t need a lesson in the importance of branding–they already spend millions a year doing it. That’s why their games sell so well. Consumers know their product. We know what to expect from a game with the EA logo on it.

When your target audience sees your game with your logo, do they know what to expect? They should. A company name should sell itself. That’s the power of a brand.

Your company needs to have a brand as much as you need to have a personality. It doesn’t matter how big or small: a one man show or a thousand man spectacle. You need a brand.

Your customers will develop feelings about your company based on points of contact. These experiences can be influenced or the chips can fall where they may. There are brands that people want to evangelize and tell their friends about. That brand makes a top ten list. That’s a brand you want. That brand didn’t happen by accident.

A strong brand allows for competition on more than price. Competing on price is the weakest competitive advantage. Anyone can lower prices until they go out of business. That’s not smart business. Smart businesses create their own market with few competitors. You can’t achieve this without a brand.

thatgamecompany, the makers of the popular flOw, has a distinct brand. Their games are truly unlike any others in the industry. Their games won’t be a fit for everyone and that’s okay. They call their games “core games”. They are in their own market with few competitors.

So how do you build a brand and benefit from it? First, your company needs to know Who am I?

You have an identity. The people who make up your company have an identity. What are they? What makes you tick? What makes your employees tick? Why are you in business? What do you do? Why do you wake up every day? What is your passion? What do you offer your customers?

Don’t try to hide your identity. It is a fools errand to pretend being someone else. Take the example of Superman and Clark Kent in their quest for Lois Lane’s affection.

Clark Kent hides his identity. He pretends to be someone else. He is not a run-of-the-mill small town boy looking to make it in the big city. Clark fails miserably to court Lois. On the other hand, Superman knows who he is. He doesn’t hide his otherworldly origin or his super powers. He saves people from danger because he believes he should. It’s not an act, it’s who he is. Superman wins.

Clark Kent and Superman are exactly the same person. One is true to himself and the other is not. A brand that attracts people is like Superman.

A small game company with a few employees should not be ashamed of being small. That is who you are. Don’t pretend to be bigger. You cannot build a brand on a foundation of lies.

A large game company shouldn’t pretend to be an indie shop. It isn’t you. People will see right through it. No one likes a liar. No one wants to do business with a liar.

The goal of a brand is not to be a fit to everyone. Not a single successful brand does that. Successful brands are like successful people. They know who they are and believe in their work. People are attracted to them because they are real. Not everyone will like them but, those who do will make a real connection. That’s a fan for life. Lifetime profitability is the lifeblood of long term success.

Every point of contact with customers need to be congruent with your brand. The only way to do that is to be able to communicate who you are to your employees. Your brand starts with your employees. You can’t communicate that you are a friendly, loving, smile-flashing company and have employees who are rude to customers.

The people responsible for direct interaction with customers should exemplify your brand. If your brand is fun, social, helpful, and out-going then you need people who have those qualities. Best Buy’s Geek Squad needs technology and gadget lovers working for them or there will be a brand disconnect.

The quickest way to communicate your brand to employees and customers is with a tagline.

A good tagline is essential. Potential customers should know what you do and who you are in a blink of an eye. Your tagline needs to tell them everything they need to know in a few words. A tagline is like a signature, it should be distinctive. Once you come up with a good tagline, use it on everything. There is no point in having a tagline if you aren’t going to use it.

Take the time and effort to come up with a great tagline. It may seem useless to put so much effort on a few words but, you need those magical words that eloquently consolidates everything you are. It’ll help keep everyone in the company focused and on the same page. That is priceless.

Everything about your company needs to be congruent with your brand: company logo, mission, employee attitudes, website, advertising, story, etc. All of it. Every inch of your company needs to reflect your brand.

Building a brand takes time and effort. Two people can’t become great friends in one sitting. It takes a series of meetings, activities, conversations, cups of coffee, pints of beer, etc. Every contact builds the relationship. Every contact provides more information about each other. Showing up as a different person at each contact will never create a strong relationship. Building a brand is like building a friendship.

Brands are like people.

There is no shortage of iPhone developers. There is no shortage of iPhone applications. With over 100,000 apps, there is no shortage of extra features. It makes me wonder how I ever lived without my iPhone. I use Google Maps to get around. I share picture perfect moments using the Facebook App. I use the Subway Map app to get around NYC. I use Shazam’s tiny elfin librarians to tell me the name of songs. I use the Chase Mobile App to check account balances.

You name it, there’s an app for that. A year from now, you name it, and there will be apps for that and the ten other things you didn’t think of.

These are all conveniences iPhones owners have enjoyed. I have taken these services for granted. I don’t worry about where anything is anymore, I can find it on Google Maps. All of this convenience is fantastic for the consumer, while those trying to sell apps on the iPhone are finding it harder to stand out.

The most competitive category is Games. There are few categories as popular as the Games section of the App Store. There are more Games than any other category. At over 20,000 strong, avoiding obscurity will be a challenge.

But not only that, you need to have a lasting impression. You may have created the hottest iPhone game to date but, what is going to stop someone from releasing a $.99 clone? How do you ensure a cheaper clone isn’t going to eat away at your sales and market share?

Take the once popular iShoot. It made $800,000 in five months and prompted its creator, Ethan Nicholas, to leave his job at Sun Microsystems. iShoot has since been buried by competitors and copycats. Nicholas says it’s “terrifying” and that iShoot’s success was “pure luck”.

Pure luck is not going to work for a business selling games on the App Store. Relying on luck to run a business is the surest way to the land of businesses-that-were. And I’m not sure all businesses go to heaven.

Luckily, the solution is as old as time: marketing. Why do you buy Tide instead of Acme Brand? They may have exactly the same quality and stain fighting power but, Acme Brand isn’t going to hold a candle to the power of Tide.

There was a time when only a handful of games were on the App Store. The best games sold well in those prehistoric times. Those days are long gone. You can release a game on the App Store tomorrow and it’ll be in the company of a hundred other games. Only a small fraction of all iPhone users are going to know your game came out. People can’t buy what they don’t know about!

This is logical reasoning but, not everyone is on board. In an interview with Wired, Austin Sarner, CEO of Design by a Knife, said this:

“Basically everybody’s on the same level once they submit an iPhone app. Unlike traditional marketing, there’s no ad campaign: A user just sees what he sees in the iPhone store, and the applications kind of have to sell themselves to some extent.”

Sarner’s philosophy is that great content drives App Store success and not “marketing”. Sarner is a developer by profession so this an understandable point of view. Sarner confuses advertising with marketing and doesn’t realize that developing a great product is a fundamental function of marketing.

It is inaccurate that there is no advertising behind iPhone games. EA didn’t come to the party without their advertising muscle. And with hundreds of games being added to the App Store every week, the clutter alone will make you invisible no matter how good your game is.

It is suicide to release an app and hope it will be magically discovered. Only 7% of iPhone users download through iTunes, 62% knew what they wanted, 60% browsed the top lists, and 46% were from word of mouth according to AdMob. The 62% who knew what they wanted heard it somewhere first. It didn’t come to them in a dream.

If you are convinced that making the greatest iPhone game in the world, releasing it to the App Store, and then praying it will sell is a viable strategy, I have two words for you: good luck. You are going to need it.

However, if you want a viable business, there is a better way.

Game developers worldwide will disagree and hate this but, marketing has to be part of the development process from day one. You can’t create a game and then sprinkle some marketing pixie dust as an after thought. That’s the equivalent of wearing a blindfold, spinning around a few times, and then trying to hit a pinata. You have no idea where the target is. You are going to miss.

The development process starts with an audience. You need to target someone. You don’t need to go after the same audience as everyone else, but you need an audience. Who is going to buy your game? You need to make a game for them. You can make a game for yourself, but that’s not a business–it’s a hobby. Doing things in that fashion means it’ll always be a hobby.

Your game needs to be characteristic of your company brand–your company does have a brand right? There is a reason EA has multiple brands. Each brand has its own image and their games reflect that. EA Games caters to a more traditional audience, EA Sports develops games for the sports audience, and EA Play is solely focused on the casual market.

Engage with the community. If your audience is there, you need to be there engaging them: blogs, forums, YouTube videos, LinkedIn groups, Facebook groups, etc. If your audience is there, you need to be there. Being engaged does not mean spamming. Join the conversations and use your company as the name of contact or end each comment noting your company. Don’t be obnoxious. Be informative, helpful, and provide useful discourse.

Marketing your game is a full-time job. People who solely work on the development side find this difficult to swallow. In their world, they are doing the hard work. Their point of view isn’t without merit. Without them, there would be no product at all.

To make things worse, it is difficult to accurately measure the impact marketing has on your business. You may never know how or if someone who interacts with your marketing ends up buying your product. In fact, they might not buy your product at all. They might talk to ten other people about their experience with your company and then one or more within those ten may end up buying. We cannot accurately measure this.

For people who are used to concrete and visible patterns, marketing may as well be voodoo. However, this doesn’t make marketing less important. It does mean marketing requires a different mindset than that of development.

Social medias has allowed us to monitor our audience’s thoughts, concerns, and feelings in real time. This lets us adjust our marketing efforts on the fly if it isn’t working or is having a negative effect. You need to be constantly monitoring your audience. It isn’t just a matter of marketing during a release–you will end up like iShoot. Cultivate your audience and develop a community.

Infinity Ward, the makers of Call of Duty, understands the importance of a strong community. They have a community manager, Robert Bowling, whose sole job is to monitor the Call of Duty audience. Without him, Modern Warfare 2 may not have become the highest grossing entertainment release of all time. The game would have done well no matter what. Call of Duty has a history, the first Modern Warfare was excellent, the hype surrounding Modern Warfare 2 was spectacular, it was a high quality product, and Call of Duty is a known entity–a brand. But, would it have done as well without marketing? Of course, we can never actually measure it but, I’m willing to bet marketing made the difference between one of the highest grossing and the highest grossing.

“”Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it’s okay.”

Horizon says that @abonnen had moved out recently so clearly there was something about the apartment that she did not like–possibly the mold? So instead of trying to find out what was the issue and looking for a way to resolve it, Horizon went the “legal” route: a $50,000 lawsuit for libel.

“We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization,” he said, noting that the company manages 1,500 apartments in Chicago and has a good reputation it wants to preserve.

They are going to soon be an organization with a bad reputation for using legal muscle when someone says something unpleasant about them.

I am no lawyer but, I can’t see this having legs. Things are written about people and organizations every day on the internet through blogs, Twitter updates, Facebook udpates, etc. Are we going to file lawsuits every time someone says something we don’t like?

Whatever the legality of this is, the legal system will sort it out. I can only comment with some authority on the impact this has on Horizon’s image. No one likes a bully and this is a clear case of bullying. In this brave new world where every brand or company is going to be talked about whether they like it or not, bullying is not the best way to preserve a good reputation.

For me, I will be highly unlikely to want to rent properties under Horizon as they might try to sue me if the relationship goes sour and I write about it. We are always telling others about our experiences with companies. Good or bad. So if I have a bad experience with Horizon and then tell people that I see every day and people in my social networks, am I going to be sued for libel and slander because Horizon feels it is false?

Very few people probably saw @abonnen’s tweet about Horizon. Now that they filed an outrageous sum for a tweet, many more people have discovered it. Good job! They have now helped more people associate Horizon with moldy apartments and frivolous lawsuits.

I can understand these kinds of banner ads for a dating site like True. It is definitely effective as in 2006 these ads resulted in True signing 1000 new members per hour. I have no idea how useful the site is for dating but, the absolute conversions in 2006 are impressive. It would be my guess that True has a lot more guys in their database than girls. In that scenario, how long will it be before you run out of suckers?

That is one way to do dating site ads. I would think those types of ads brings in a lot of creepy guys and very few ladies. I could be completely wrong as I don’t know True’s male to female ratio but, my gut instinct is that it doesn’t work. I like Match.com’s advertising a lot better. It is classy and not all about sex.

With Match.com, you see a real person. Not some model in an erotic pose. They don’t scream sex. I would have to think that Match.com has a more even gender distribution. It makes little sense for a woman to join a dating site like True to hook-up with guys. They could just put on their hottest outfit and hit up the bar or club. Guys will be tripping over themselves to talk to them.

With True, their models are dripping with sex:

I don’t think anyone who signs up to True is looking for “love”, unless by “love” they mean sex. True’s advertising is not a disaster considering the product they are selling but, when a free online web game–that has nothing to do with sex–uses the same tactics, I consider it an epic fail in good marketing.

The perpetrating game is Evony–I won’t link to them to give them any legitimacy. I’ve seen their earlier ads and I was never interested but, I knew what they were. They have gradually changed the content of their advertisements to go from something that represents their product to something that looks like a True ad.

These two ads are representative of their product: a game that takes place in medieval times. You have a Knight on the left and perhaps a Queen or Princess on the right. Now here is their new stuff:

How does anyone know that this is a game about medieval times? The style and font is identical to True ads. The flaw in this advertising strategy is that it might work extremely well to get you click-through’s but, what happens to your brand? How low are the response rates? Will this bring in any revenue? Maybe a fraction of a percent signs up to try the game but, are they going to stay or spend any money?

The game operates on a freemium model where a small percentage of the users shell out cash so that everyone else can play for free. If my interest in the advertisement was the sex and not the medieval fantasy, how likely am I to play the game and pay real money to buy a virtual product? Highly unlikely.

Is this type of advertising worth it? I can’t see Evony’s financials so it is hard to say if it is worth it from an immediate monetary perspective but, I can confidently say that the negative affect to the brand is not worth it. It is all very possible that the people behind this product don’t really care in which case, they will be happy to add to the plethora of garbage ads littering the world wide web. Thanks assholes.

UPDATE 9/7/09: So, I ran into some more of Evony’s advertising and it has gotten even worse. They don’t even bother noting it’s a game at all.

I have no intention of reviewing the book. I thought it was good. That’s all.

I do want to talk about my thoughts of the price of $0. There is probably no greater incentive in all of marketing than free. How do you beat free? I guess you could pay people to take your products but, that seems highly unsustainable and perhaps stupid.

My perspective on free is one based on economics and not trends or fads or what seems popular. A price is only as good as what the market is willing to pay. I can try to sell a house for $1 million dollars but, if there are no buyers willing to pay, I will never see the $1 million dollars.

I could sit on it and wait and hope for someone to buy my house for the price I set. There are costs associated with waiting. At what point does it become counter-productive for me to continue waiting? Certainly, if I go bankrupt trying to service the payments, bills, or taxes on the house, I should have probably lowered the price.

Now, if I ran a business with a product that less and less people are willing to pay for, when should I stop trying to fight the forces of economics and find a new business model? I could try and hang on to the past and blame it on “thieves” or “pirates” stealing my product and eventually go out of business. The reality is that not enough people feel your product is worth the price you want to sell it at.

The market likes your product and will be more than happy to use it if it was at a price they feel it is worth–that price happens to be $0.

No one can run a business solely on giving things away. Businesses need to make money. The question is how do you make money if the market value of your product is $0?

The catch with all this is that no one has a concrete answer and it varies by industry and product. I work in the video game industry and it is different than the music industry or the movie industry. We are all considered entertainment but, what works for music might not work for games.

I feel it is just a matter of time before people feel that the market value of games should be $0. Right now, people still pay for big titles and games on mobile devices. When is that going to stop? There is a whole market of online games that are completely free and monetizing these games have become more and more difficult for smaller companies.

The one law of business that people tend to forget is that the consumer is the one in control. This law gets distorted with government intervention but, the main idea is still the same. Businesses exist to serve the customers. We cannot demand customers to do what we want, they are our masters. Those who don’t serve the market disappear unless a rich uncle keeps them around.

Nonetheless, the people didn’t like this and made their voice heard on Twitter. I followed the trend for a little bit that day and found that AT&T was responding to the uproar. I thought AT&T was doing a pretty good job explaining to people the pricing structure and the facts about early upgrades.

@ATTNews couldn’t make any changes to prices so they did their best job to provide information straight from the horses mouth. They also made sure to note that they were listening to what the people were saying.

Now, a few days later, AT&T informs us that they are going to offer iPhone 3G owners who have a contract expiring in July, August, or September the best upgrade price on June 18th. This is AT&T listening to its customers and responding to their concerns. I thought AT&T was doing a great job by just listening and providing clear information. Making the best upgrade price available to existing customers whose contract is almost about to end is something they didn’t need to do.

Good job AT&T! I will still have to wait until July to get my iPhone 3G S as I don’t have an iPhone 3G contract about to expire. I just assume I will able to avoid the hysteria by the time mid July rolls around.

The question a marketer would ask is: how did Cold-Eeze sell me on their product? That’s the kind of thing we like to know. I did some brief research into the marketing efforts of Cold-Eeze and the financial statements of the Quigley Company–they make Cold-Eeze–to find the answer.

Get Well Sooner Campaign

I have personally never seen an advertisement for Cold-Eeze. If I have, I certainly don’t remember it. The first time that I came into contact with Cold-Eeze was at Duane Reade and their packaging touted the product’s ability to cut the length of the common cold. Who doesn’t want a cold to go away faster?! It was also the most expensive product of its kind but, I bought it anyway–I actually didn’t buy it the first time around because of the price.

Cold-Eeze has employed some advertising–I was able to locate some ads and the Get Well Sooner campaign by Merkley + Partners. The campaign was estimated to cost between $6 – $10 million. Based on the Merkley + Partners website, their Cold-Eeze work consisted of print, TV, and interactive. However, the web is most amazed with the billboards that Merkley + Partners are noted to be responsible for but, they do not take claim to it on their website.

There are other forms of print ads and commercial storyboards that I came across but, they don’t really tie to any agency or campaign. It could possibly be work that was never used. The print and TV ads for Get Well Sooner can be viewed on agency’s website–their site is in flash so I can’t directly link to the specific sections.

The interactive part of the campaign consisted of a website and some banner ads. The website is still live on a different address. It isn’t a specific online campaign or landing page. I used the Internet Archive Wayback Machine and found out that the website was the official Cold-Eeze website for a couple of years. The current website is different.

Some of the features from the old website is on the new website and on Quigley’s ColdFight360 website. Reusing parts and pieces certainly makes sense!

Going Interactive

I don’t want to jump the gun and say that Cold-Eeze is moving towards more interactive marketing and less traditional advertising but, I have not found any traditional advertising besides the Get Well Sooner campaign of 2005-2006. I also can’t find any information on how well the campaign did.

Financial statements show that Quigley has been increasingly losing money since 2006. They have cash reserves of about $12 million and no long term debt. They look pretty good financially as long as they can eventually return to making a profit.

With the economy is in this battered state, it makes a lot of sense to shift marketing dollars to cheaper interactive vehicles. The Cold-Eeze website has a prominent link to their Facebook Fan Page. They only have 150 fans and limited communication on its wall–it would probably be beneficial to engage the fans in a conversation.

I don’t see Cold-Eeze talking with the fans, they are just pushing announcements. That isn’t a very effective way to operate a social media effort. There is some live chatter about Cold-Eeze on Twitter. They are not active on Twitter even thought it appears that they could be. People mention Cold-Eeze when talking about being sick and colds happen to catch people all year round.

Their current social media efforts appear to focus around Facebook. Social media is all very new so I assume they are taking it one step at a time! Still, Cold-Eeze can improve their use of Facebook, I would recommend looking at Skittles. Skittles does a good job on Facebook. They talk about more than just their products!

The Website

I like the Cold-Eeze website. They have a pharmacist on-hand who can answer questions people submit. They provide information on how Cold-Eeze works and even has case studies in PDF format. The are reinforcing their unique selling advantage. If you don’t believe that Cold-Eeze is the only product proven to cut the length of the common cold, they have case studies to prove it!

If the case studies can’t convince you to give it a try, there is an online coupon to push you over the edge. Once you’ve tried it, Cold-Eeze gives you the tools to share with friends and family. I think this is fantastic. I enjoy sharing Cold-Eeze with friends so making it easy to do can only help spread the word.

Cold-Eeze wants you to talk about them when you get sick or your friends get sick. They even provide you the coupon to send to your friends. This helps make the sender feel important by allowing them to almost give a gift to a friend. Unfortunately, I tried to sign-up for the coupon and it didn’t work. Might be a technical error but, the link to print tells you that no materials related to this campaign exists.

They also allow you to send a Get Well Sooner e-card to friends using Hallmark’s e-card service. I thought that was a pretty cool feature. This furthers the goal of getting people talking about them. Incorporating the services of a warm and fuzzy brand like Hallmark is also a great move. People like it when others care about them when they are sick. Why not associate your brand with these good feelings?

Why Do I Spread the Word?

Cold-Eeze’s marketing isn’t out of this world. They can do more to develop conversations on the social web. This would help generate more word of mouth. There aren’t any advocacy programs that I can point to. They don’t produce viral videos. They don’t plaster the airwaves with advertisements and magazines aren’t dripping with their ads.

I don’t work for Quigley’s and they certainly don’t give me anything for constantly recommending their product. I don’t need them to though it would be nice . I also don’t own their stock–maybe I should? Ultimately, the main reason why I spread the word about Cold-Eeze is because of something very basic, the first P of the 4 P’s of marketing that every graduate out of college knows: Product.

Cold-Eeze works.

Now, there is one other factor that leads me to be an advocate. Cold-Eeze is not so popular that everyone knows about them or has tried them. Of course, that’s not exactly good for Quigley’s bottom line but, I promote Cold-Eeze because I feel that it is a secret I know.

I have the secret to shorter colds and it is Cold-Eeze. The day that Cold-Eeze becomes widely known–the day they plaster the world with ads–I will no longer have this advantage. Everyone would know about it and the advocates would die out.

So until then, I recommend you fight your cold with Cold-Eeze!

Chase eventually bought WaMu for a fraction if its worth and I was not happy about it. I still bank with WaMu and will continue to do so as long as their service is still WaMu service. Chase service is notoriously crappy. So I use my two bank accounts for different things.

My TDBank account is really where I put money to pay monthly bills and recurring expenses so I never put more money than I need in that account–at least not until I have to have a minimum balance in there! So one of my checks bounced recently because I tried buying a MetroCard at a MetroCard Vending Machine.

The machine had trouble charging my debit card but, eventually did it correctly and dispensed me a card. Great. However, TDBank then held onto the money that did not result in me getting a MetroCard. My actual account balance did not look underfunded but, my available balance did–by the amount of the money held for failed transactions.

So when the check a wrote goes to be deposited, TDBank says my account does not have sufficient funds so I get slapped with a NSF Fee. Fine. Now, I did not know that the check will continue to try clearing after a failed first attempt. So I was hit with another NSF Fee.

I called TDBank asking what that was about and found out that the check is going to try a few times before it gives up. Interesting. After discovering that, I did not expect the customer service representative to do anything but, he removed the second NSF Fee! That was an unexpected surprise.

TDBank is still no WaMu but, I am pleased with my customer service experience. They do call themselves America’s Most Convenient Bank and in this case, they delivered on their message.

I heard a radio advertisement for General Motors in the car this weekend–I drive a Nissan. The ad talked about how the sound of a car and other things about the car speaks for the quality of it. I really thought this was an ad for BMW or a comparable car company.

Once I heard the radio-voice-guy say that he was talking about GM cars, I had to laugh. I have never driven a GM vehicle so I have no first-hand experience of their quality or lack thereof. However, the general consensus amongst the car fanatics that I know is that GM does not make good cars.

Generally, they say American cars are no good compared to the Japanese or Germans. The word of mouth that I am surrounded by is that GM does not produce good vehicles. In fact, the market would tell you the same thing as people are not buying GM. There is a reason why they are on the brink of bankruptcy.

This was an ad in the late afternoon on New York’s z100 radio station–a Top 40 hit music station. I can’t imagine this being very cheap considering its reach in the New York tri-state area. I’m also sure that I’m not the only one who found this message to contradict the reality of General Motors.

GM can’t manage a car company profitably and they can’t create good advertising. I wonder how much of their bailout money went to this ad.