The Newsletter Pro's online newsletter for March 2018
#343 in the 2016 INC. 500 | #120 in the 2015 INC. 500 | 2016 & 2017 Best Place to Work in Idaho | Marketer of the Year | 24K Club Winner
03.18 208.297.5700 www.thenewsletterpro.com
As Seen On:
INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
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Sync Up Your Teams With Slack Hear It From Brian at Adler Injury Law Disney’s Genius Business Tactics The Growth You Actually Want
PAGE 6 Start to Track These Key
Performance Indicators in Your Business Today!
PAGE 7 PAGE 8
Meet Sydnie Kremin
Marketing That Shut Down the Entire City of Boston
GAME CHANGER: The Story of One of My BIGGEST BUSINESS DISCOVERIES!
went out many times, I had to stay home because I was a teenage dad and had responsibilities. The house wasn’t going to clean itself, and those poopy diapers needed someone to change them. So, I stayed home and was basically alone. Being alone wasn’t all bad. I did have plenty of time to daydream about being rich, as well as study business and various business models. In that sense, it was a blessing and a curse. It is often said that being an entrepreneur is the loneliest job in the world, and in many cases, that is 100 percent true. It is hard to talk about difficult times because most
When I was first starting out in business in my early 20s, I had so many skewed thoughts. Some examples included the thought that the franchise model was the be-all, end-all to business. I used to think that no one (and by no one, I mean employees) could do things better than I could — boy was I wrong there. Although the previous beliefs held me back, the one belief that I had in my 20s that held me back the most was that I could go it all alone. I was a bit of a loner when I was in school and as a young adult. Part of it came from being an entrepreneur and simply thinking differently than many of my peers. Part of it came from having a kid early, so I felt I was all alone. The truth of the matter is that, in some ways, I was alone. While all of my friends
“It is often said that being an entrepreneur is the loneliest job in the world, and in many cases, THAT IS 100 PERCENT TRUE.”
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people don’t understand what you’re going through. You can’t tell your employees about hardships because you risk them getting spooked and looking for another job. I’ve actually come to believe that a business with a good culture isn’t as true as it used to be, but if you’re having a hard time making payroll and you tell all the employees, you do run a huge risk of losing some or all of them. If you’re not sure how to market or fix a problem with the business, you’ve got to watch out there, as well. It really can be lonely as an entrepreneur. Most of my friends who aren’t entrepreneurs don’t get it, either. When you’re stressed out about a situation with a customer or employee, it goes over a person’s head. If you have an opportunity, but you feel the risk level is a bit higher than normal, do you chat with your friends over dinner about this million-dollar decision? If they’re not entrepreneurs, it’s hard for them to give advice or to even understand the situation. The loneliness doesn’t only cover the bad times; it affects the good times, as well. Having a great month or year financially? Watch out who you tell. They may want a raise or a handout, depending on who they are. As an example, I drive a Porsche to work as often as I can. It was literally my childhood dream to own one. I’ve been told by both employees and consultants that I shouldn’t drive it to work because I don’t want to make too big of a show that I may be doing well. I ignored both the advice and criticism from the employee. But I mention it to prove my point — it’s lonely being an entrepreneur. Even when you’re doing well, you’re told you should be ashamed or hide it. That’s crazy talk! Side note: To be clear, I’m a big believer in sharing the marbles with the people who help you achieve success, and this includes your employees. I’m not suggesting that if you’re having a great year, people in the organization don’t deserve raises or bonuses. You should never try to get ahead by holding others down. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be allowed to have nice things and enjoy your success. “Most people don’t understand what you’re going through.”
bonus of friendships from people who get you. They’re people who are in the same or a similar boat.
Even with an entrepreneur friend, you have to be careful how much of the good times you share, because it can be easy for some entrepreneurs to get jealous of success.
Joining this group was the turning point for me, both personally and professionally, in a number of ways. During my four years with this group, I was able to get insights on areas where I sucked. I got advice on my business model and got to see other winning business models. This helped me create The Newsletter Pro foundation and adapt what I was doing to incorporate winning strategies from other businesses into my business. I got to ask specific questions to people who had been there and done that, which shortened my learning curve. As an added bonus, I’m still great friends with many of the same 20 people I met in that original group. I do business with some and can call any of them for help, despite that group having dissolved years ago. I’m convinced that having a coach and peer group to help you in business during hard times — and to share in the success of your business when there are good or great times — is one of the single best and most overlooked strategies for entrepreneurs. It was for me, for sure. Since this experience, I’ve used coaches and peer groups without fail each year. I’ve had one or two at a time since I first discovered the power of coaching at this level in 2012. Think about it like this. Tom Cruise is one of the best actors in Hollywood. He may not be your favorite, but from a box-office standpoint, his films have grossed over $9.3 billion worldwide. Whatever you think of him as an actor, it is hard to argue with $9.3 billion of unadjusted ticket sales. Even with all his success, Tom has multiple coaches for acting. One of the best quarterbacks of all time is Tom Brady, and he has a minimum of half a dozen coaches at any given time.
Being an entrepreneur is literally the loneliest job on the planet.
Once we move past how lonely it is, what about how hard it is?
You have to set the vision of the company, create the culture, hire, fire, and train. Next, you need to set the goals and priorities for the company, yourself, and the team. After that, maybe we better think about sales and marketing. Don’t forget about HR, taxes, and other regulations. We all have customers, and they have needs — some reasonable that should be accommodated and some unrealistic and totally unreasonable. All of our employees have lives, needs, and issues, both personally and professionally, which need to be assisted or managed. I know I’ve questioned my sanity a few times over the years. But the reality of it is that you don’t have to — and shouldn’t — go on this journey alone. In 2012, I joined a mentoring group that had 20 members, and it changed my life. This was the first time I had ever joined any type of coaching. Previously, I thought I didn’t need it. I thought I could go it alone, as I mentioned earlier, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. Every single great entrepreneur, athlete, actor, speaker, etc. has a coach. When you put like-minded entrepreneurs in the same room, you get an added Have you ever thought being an entrepreneur is something only crazy people do?
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Go to NewsletterPro.com/apply . On this site, you’ll see a short application. Once you apply, I’ll have my team reach out to answer any questions and do a
If you want to be open, sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly in your business, while also getting to see behind the scenes of other people’s businesses, this may be a good fit. If you’re willing to talk about KPIs in your business and what’s working and not working, this may be the group for you. 1. If you can’t prove you’re at a million dollars in revenue, this is not the group for you. 2. If you can’t commit to three meetings per year, again, you should pass. 3. If you are a jerk, you and I won’t get along well, so save us both time and don’t apply. 4. If you can’t honor commitments, this isn’t the right group for you. I know that’s a lot of rules, but putting on this group is more about making sure the people who join are a good fit. How many people join is less important to me. If you think you may be a good fit, here are the steps. I have a few rules that must be followed:
He personally pays some of the coaches above and beyond what the Patriots pay for.
fit check. Once they sign off on you, you and I can jump on a short call, and I’ll give final approval. This will help ensure the right people make it in and the wrong people don’t.
You will never be at the top of your game without coaching and a solid peer group.
That, though, creates another major problem. Where do you find a good coach and peer group?
–Shaun
I’ve struggled with this for years. Finding someone who is actually doing and not just teaching is hard. Finding a group that doesn’t have 50 or 100 people in it so you can get individualized attention is also hard. The worst things that can happen in a group are either that the info is not useful or just theory, or the group is so big you can’t actually get the help you need. With that in mind, due to a larger than normal influx of requests, I’ve decided to create a small group just for companies looking to scale. What do I mean by scale? If you’re looking to add strategies and tactics in sales, marketing, hiring, firing, and training of employees, team building, culture, and management, this is a group you should consider.
P.S. The nitty-gritty: There will be three meetings, two in Boise and one in Las Vegas (when it’s cold in Boise). The
first meeting will be on April 26 and 27. The exact days of the additional meetings will be agreed upon during the April meeting. The additional meetings will be in September 2018 and February 2019.
There will be other cool benefits, which we can send you additional details about after the application.
P.P.S. This is going to be a small group mastermind, so the seats will be crazy limited. If you have any interest, apply now to reserve the opportunity to join. NewsletterPro.com/apply
In order to survive in the intensely competitive contemporary marketplace, businesses need to be more nimble and collaborative than ever. There’s no time to play telephone around the office, hold unnecessary meetings, or constantly update members of the team about every little detail of a project. What’s more, as companies expand and workers begin working remotely, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep everyone on the same page. RESOURCE OF THE MONTH SYNC UP YOUR TEAMS WITH The Messaging Platform for the Modern Marketplace
day off or a manager reviewing productivity among your marketing team, you can track down old communications with a simple search. These archives also index any file that’s uploaded within the system, allowing users to search for keywords not only in the chat, but in any shared Word or PDF documents throughout the network. It’s just one feature of many that makes life easier. And that’s exactly what Slack does: It simplifies your life. With an attractive and easy-to-use interface, the program gets out of the way, allowing you and your team to interact clearly and rapidly with no obstructions. There’s simply no better way to build a space of transparency and synchronicity throughout teams, whether large or small.
member of your team who isn’t in the chat, it’s easy to tag any user across the network with a simple @ mention. Then, they can join, talk it out, and leave when their task is complete. So far, these features may seem fairly basic. Aside from the robust and crystal-clear implementation, which makes navigating the program a breeze, online chat has been around for years. But when you account for Slack’s wide array of additional tweaks and features to the common chat formula, it really shines. For instance, everything within Slack is automatically indexed and archived. Whether you’re a team member catching up on a project after a
Luckily, there’s Slack, a streamlined messaging app that gathers every communication across your entire company under a single platform. As many businesses are surely aware by now, Slack is perhaps the most hyped and lauded collaborative tool on the market, and with good reason. Let’s start with its primary feature: instant chat and messaging. The application connects users in real time, but it also understands that not everyone is needed for every conversation and that every discussion should not necessarily be accessible to the same employees. You can set up open conversations in both one-on-one and sub-group settings while restricting access to keep out unwanted or unneeded parties. If your group has a question for a particular
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I recently got home from a family trip to Disney World. Every year, we take a few family vacations, but the big vacation is a rotation between Disney World and Hawaii. I’m thinking of changing that to two Hawaii trips for each Disney World trip, but that’s a topic for another time. Disney’s Cash Cow Genius Way of Turning a Slow Time of Year Into a Will Change the Way You Think About Sales Data ‘ When it comes to growth, many entrepreneurs make the mistake of looking for a silver bullet. If they could only find that secret combination of marketing techniques, they’d convert all their traffic into sales and be an overnight success. If you’re prone to this sort of magical thinking, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of “Hacking Growth.” In this no-nonsense guide, Morgan Brown and Sean Ellis share their real-world experience of helping startups become household names. These case studies dip beneath the gloss of the seemingly effortless growth experienced by companies like DropBox and Airbnb to reveal the truth: All growth is hard-earned. At least, all meaningful growth is hard-earned. The authors admit that there can be “one-hit wonders,” where growth spikes, only to never be seen again. Even though entrepreneurs dream of this accidental, viral success, it’s actually harmful. The book is chalk-full of these cautionary tales, where companies enjoy meteoric success without investing the time and resources to actually One of the things I enjoy most about going to Disney World is just how good of businesspeople the folks at Disney are. MARKETING HOW-TO OUR BOOKSHELF
CLIENT SUCCESS
In this case, everything. “Newsletter Pro” says it all. From concept, design, and content to production and distribution, these guys are a pleasure to work with. Without The Newsletter Pro, I simply wouldn’t have the time, expertise, or resources to communicate with my sizable group of valued referral partners every month. As a personal injury attorney, I face stiff competition for new clients from other law firms. Often, my competitors are large firms with much larger budgets. Furthermore, I’m forbidden by ethics rules from doing many of the things that businesses typically do to attract customers. For example, I cannot reach out and contact prospective clients directly, as solicitation is improper. As my young, part-time marketing assistant observed, “That’s a huge problem.” It became clear that I needed to grow a network of referral sources who would think of me when the need arose. Since no one can predict when an injury accident will happen, sporadic communications with potential referral sources is not very effective. With The Newsletter Pro, I am able to reintroduce myself to my clients, former clients, and colleagues every month through an entertaining, economical gift that they are sure to notice. My publication is always timely, professional, and engaging. My newsletter has definitely raised my profile. I get telephone calls from prospective clients that I would not receive were it not for my newsletter. I am able to stay top of mind with former clients well after my work for them is completed. In turn, they often pass my name along to their friends and family who may need help. Also, it’s not unusual for my colleagues to compliment me on an article that touched or informed them in some way. I’ve found that funny or poignant quotes from movies or literature tend to make an impact on my readers. So, when it’s appropriate, I try to incorporate them in my cover article. Of course, my clients already love me … but my newsletter definitely enhances our bond. Thanks, Newsletter Pro! WHAT’S IN A NAME?
–Brian H. Adler, Adler Injury Law
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themselves surprised when Christmas is only four days away. I can tell you that, for my 38 years on this planet, Christmas has always been on Dec. 25. Not once has it changed. So, why it sneaks up on people is a mystery to me. Don’t allow your slow season to sneak up on you without a plan to at least try to make it better. Before I conclude this article, I want to give you an alternative to planning more sales and marketing for the slow season. This is not an alternative I would advise, but one I know that a few people subscribe to. You could, as some business owners do, simply accept the slow period and do nothing. The reasoning for this is typically that they don’t want to push and spend money when no one is paying attention. Depending on your business model, this might very well make sense. But make sure you fully analyze your situation before resorting to this approach, or you may be missing out on your next big marketing success. Regardless of which direction you go, don’t let the slow season sneak up on you. If you’re going to work hard and grow through it, make the plans now. If you’re going to not stress about it and take a vacation, then make those plans. Either way, make sure you have a plan.
about how much that helps sales during one of the slowest times of the year for Mickey.
understand their customers. In the end, they always seem to crash and burn. Brown and Ellis see growth as a marathon, not a sprint. This perspective is sobering, but it isn’t exactly fresh in the world of business advice. The real wisdom “Hacking Growth” has to offer is how to run smarter, not faster. Ellis illustrates this right at the beginning of the book. As a marketing manager of a small game studio competing with the likes of Sony and Microsoft, he had to do more with less. His winning strategy was to rethink how the studio collected and interpreted sales data. While this process has been one of trial and error throughout Ellis’s carrier, the underlying philosophy has remained the same: Understand your customers. “Hacking Growth” embraces all the tools of our digital age, but it sees them as a lens to create laser-focused campaigns. Rather than spam your message out to the masses, you want to engage For example, we always try to go during the slowest times of the year. One of those times happens to be January, which is the perfect time to not be in Boise. This year, we went a bit earlier than normal due to my travel plans. When we arrived, we quickly discovered that the week after New Year’s is Disney World’s marathon week. You see, Disney realized that the week after New Year’s is super slow, so they set out to change things. They did an incredibly smart thing by finding a group of people who are fanatical about their sport and created an amazing experience that these individuals would love to be a part of. Ultimately, Disney had 25,000 people register to run anywhere from a 5K up to 43 miles through all four parks. The marathon only went on for a few days, but you know what? Those 25,000 racers didn’t just run the marathon and go home. No, they brought family and friends and stayed both before and after the event to ride the rides and meet princesses and princes. They shopped in the gift shops and stayed in the hotels. They bought food and drinks and gifts. They added park-hopper tickets and so much more. I was able to get an estimate that more than 75,000 additional people were in the park on the days before, during, and after the marathon. Think
One of the primary keys to the success of this promotion is that Disney went after another group of crazy-passionate people and didn’t simply run a promotion. By targeting marathoners, they were able to get more than 75,000 extra people in the park without discounting them. In fact, the 25,000 marathon runners actually paid extra to run the marathon. When you think about the genius behind this promotion, not only did they get tons of extra revenue and room nights in a slow season, but they did it without a discount. As a bonus, they also got many of those 75,000 people to not attend during a busy season, because they were just there for the marathon. What is your slow season? Do you typically discount or just accept that it is the slow season, or do you have a plan? Can you create an event that people want to come to? Can you offer a bonus item during the slow season instead of a discount? Is it possible to find a way to get people to buy your products or services and spend additional money with you like Mickey did? So many of us simply don’t plan for the slow season. Instead, we let the season happen to us each year. It’s kind of like those people who find
Have You Heard the Good News?
in a dialogue with consumers, building a loyal fan base that snowballs over time. This humanist approach to the world of data-driven marketing is a refreshing read and extremely effective advice for entrepreneurs who are serious about growing their business.
Philippians 3:13-14 – “Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” II Corinthians 12:9-11 – “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
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BUSINESS TIPS AND ADVICE
Start to Track These in Your Business Today! KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS
your math is off. Also, sometimes too good of a number isn’t great. For example, I did have someone boast to me about their 10 percent churn number, but after asking a few questions, I found out that they had 24-month contracts and had been in business for 22 months. To add insult to injury, they had 28 total customers. The number alone appeared great, but with a little digging, I easily discovered that the churn number didn’t tell the whole story. Remember, these are your numbers, and the only person you hurt by not being real and honest about these numbers is yourself. Churn – I talk about this one all the time. But you need to know how many customers leave your business in any given month. This is the minimum amount you need to get in the following month just to break even. By tracking this number weekly
we’re at $54K in new pipeline revenue when we should be at $67K, we better change something fast or we will not hit our goal in this month and will likely not in the coming month, either. Average Annual Revenue Per Employee – This is a great number to track. If I know your sales number and number of employees, I can do some simple math to get revenue per employee and know how healthy your company is or is not. Most companies with over a million dollars in revenue will have a minimum of $100K in revenue per employee. It is not uncommon to see small businesses with $125K, $150K, or $200K-plus, depending on the industry. Most Fortune 500 companies have a minimum of $500K in revenue per employee. The more revenue per employee, the more effective your business is at maximizing its greatest resource — the people who work there. This number can skew down a bit if you are in a stage in your business where you’re growing fast and hiring a lot of people. If you’re not in that stage and you find your revenue per employee at under $100K, you are likely very overstaffed or the business is going to struggle to ever turn a good profit and maybe even survive, in most cases. Personally, I track churn and pipeline revenue weekly, and average annual revenue per employee monthly. Armed with these numbers, you will be in a much better spot to be proactive in your business, as you can solve minor problems before they ruin your month, quarter, or year.
and monthly, you’ll start to see patterns of when customers leave, and then you can take proactive steps to reduce your churn. You can also more easily find holes in your systems and processes when you know this number. Your churn number tells you if your business is growing or dying far better than your sales numbers do. You should have a full understanding of your business’ churn number and churn points. Pipeline Revenue – This is used for anyone who gives a quote and closes business in the future. Pipeline revenue is the total sales volume you’d have if you won each and every piece of business you quoted over a given period of time. I look to the pipeline revenue number as a leading indicator of future sales. For example, if we need to produce $100K in new pipeline revenue to close $30K in sales the following month, and 20 days into the month
Have you ever wondered, “What should I really be tracking in my business? What numbers actually have actionable value, compared to numbers that are simply good to know?” Below is a list of KPIs (key performance indicators) that I track daily, weekly, or monthly, and you likely should be tracking them as well. Of course, not all numbers relate to all industries, so if you run across one that is not something you can track, either find your industry’s equivalent or skip that one. If you can track it in your industry but are simply being lazy, that would not be good. Another important note: Numbers are only good if they are valid and real. You need to double check your math. For example, if you have a 10 percent customer churn number, and you don’t actively do anything to reduce churn, there is a good chance
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ORGANIZINGCHAOS
SYDNIE KREMIN AND FINDING YOUR MOTIVATION “How organized are you?”
How does she juggle the crazy office work with studying for such challenging tests? Sydnie cites office culture as a source of motivation.
Who hasn’t been asked this question in a job interview? Most people are quick to insist they’re extremely organized and talk about time management and using calendar events. When we asked Sydnie Kremin, she responded by pulling out her color-coded planner, with pages organized by topic, in 15-minute increments, complete with inspirational quotes, long-term goals, and daily, weekly, and monthly to-do lists. Needless to say, we were more than happy to bring her on board as our special projects “chaos” coordinator. She’s a ray of sunshine, quick to deliver a bright morning greeting or share a funny story about her dog, Theodore. Sydnie is also an excellent example of what a person can achieve with a little ambition. Last May, Sydnie graduated with her bachelors in political economy from the College of Idaho. With plans to get her masters in international policy and her juris doctorate in law, she spends her extra time studying for the GRE and LSAT tests. Of course, it’s not just her mad organizational skills that make Sydnie an invaluable member of the team. KEEP UP with our BEST BLOGS If you’re looking for more great content to drive your business forward like what you’re reading in this newsletter, take a look at these articles on our blog: Rule Referrals Without Relying on Incentives www.thenewsletterpro.com/get-referrals- without-incentives/ Taylor Swift: Sales Guru of Your Dreams www.thenewsletterpro.com/taylor-swift- sales-guru/ 4 Reasons Why Business Growth Stalls www.thenewsletterpro.com/4-reasons- business-growth-stalls/ Are You Causing Your Campaign to Fail? www.thenewsletterpro.com/marketing- campaigns/
“When I came to TNP, I had just left a job I
support allowed me to refocus my energy, becoming more creative, more productive, and just more ... more! When you’re doing something you love, there are so many opportunities for personal and professional growth.” It’s also worth noting that when you work with such a positive, ambitious person, their motivation
absolutely hated,” Sydnie said. “I would go in each morning and count down the minutes until I could leave. When you spend all day at a job you can’t stand, you don’t have any motivation to do anything else. It kills your ambition. But everything changed when I started working at The Newsletter Pro.
is infectious. For this and so many other reasons, we’re delighted to have Sydnie bringing her sharp skills and vibrant personality into the office every day.
“Shaun and Mandy welcomed me with open arms and showed me what good leadership is. They really care about their employees and want to build a culture where we thrive. This atmosphere and
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208.297.5700 391 N Ancestor Pl, Boise, ID 83704 Keep up with our latest office news, blogs, and promos at www.thenewsletterpro.com!
BUSINESS PROFILE How 1 Marketing Campaign Turned Into a Terrorism Scare MAKEABOOM, BUT LEAVE OUT THE BOMB SQUAD
This doesn’t mean you can’t take risks in your marketing. Having a promotion that features a character flipping off its audience is certainly risky, but was it a poor idea? In this case, the show got famous for its obnoxious humor and aggressive stances. The gesture may certainly deter many Americans, but at the same time, it attracted a very specific demographic for “Aqua Teen Hunger Force.” Success or Failure? After the debacle of the Boston Bomb Scare and the mass hysterics behind it, Cartoon Network’s GM was forced to resign his stead. Many die-hard fans of the network have the resounding sentiment that this was the beginning of the cable TV channel’s downfall. The new leadership would take on a different approach to programming, and ratings for the network took a nosedive. Turner was forced to pay a settlement of $2 million for the mania caused by the campaign. This would cover the costs of the state and local agencies that were called to intervene and of preventing any litigation on the matter from occurring. If you believe there’s no such thing as bad publicity, then this campaign may be the biggest dollar-for-dollar success ever. What cost Turner a couple thousand dollars ended up garnering national attention and consistent exposure for days on end. The national platform introduced the show to hundreds of thousands of potential new viewers who would’ve never known about it otherwise. The movie made well over $5.5 million at the box office with a budget of only $750,000. Yet, taking a $2-million hit and negative publicity from the events that transpired begs the question: Can you call this marketing campaign a success or a total failure?
incident spiraled out of control into a daylong search-and-destroy mission. By 1 p.m., news stations had latched onto the story like a stage-five clinger and were broadcasting the tale across the country. You couldn’t turn on a TV in America without hearing about how “suspicious devices” were found scattered around the city of Boston.
All of this was because a pedestrian bystander saw one of the signs underneath a bridge and called authorities, thinking it was a bomb. With the constant threat of terrorism still on the minds of many Americans, the city of Boston reacted the only way they knew how. Local authorities shut down highways and public transportation for hours as they traversed the city in search of the devices. Finally, at 5 p.m., Turner released a statement about the intent of the signs and tried to put an end to the wave of panic that they caused. Nobody Cares About Your Intentions Hoax? Publicity stunt? Generation gap? Terrorist scare? The rhetoric used by the media to describe this incident doesn’t describe what it really was. It was a marketing campaign gone horribly, horribly wrong. Turner didn’t intend for this to be a bomb hoax or a publicity stunt. But in marketing, intention doesn’t matter. Marketing is all about interpretation. When you close off any consideration for how your marketing is going to be interpreted and only focus on what it’s intended for, you run the risk of alienating your entire audience. On the other hand, when both interpretation and intention exist in harmony, great campaigns are sure to follow. You certainly want your marketing to make a boom, but you don’t want it to activate the bomb squad. Thinking in a Silo If you don’t run your marketing through every possible scenario, you subject it to failure. Look at your marketing from all perspectives. It’s easy to get tunnel vision and only see the end goal, but all it takes is one mistake for things to spiral out of control. This campaign ran in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Austin, Philadelphia, and of course, Boston. Boston may have been the only city with an issue, but it derailed the entire campaign.
“Scaring an entire region, tying up the T (subway system) and major roadways, and forcing first responders to spend 12 hours chasing down trinkets instead of terrorists is marketing run amok. It would be hard to dream up a more appalling publicity stunt. Whoever thought this up needs to find another job.” This was the reaction of Massachusetts congressman Ed Markey to one of the most notorious guerrilla marketing campaigns in recent years. In 2007, Turner Broadcasting and their subsidiary cable channel Cartoon Network began promotions for a full- length feature film version of one of their most popular and beloved programs. “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” had been rapidly climbing the after-hours TV ranks for years and became one of the headliners of Cartoon Network’s late-night programming, Adult Swim. All of the key characters were featured, but because of a marketing campaign gone awry, one character would go down in infamy. How ‘The Mooninites’ Invaded Boston Frequently featured on “Aqua Teen Hunger Force,” The Mooninites are villainous pixelated aliens from the inner core of the moon. When it came time for Turner to promote their new movie, they decided to use these characters in a grass-roots campaign. As they had done many times in the past, Turner outsourced some of the film’s marketing to smaller agencies. Interference, Inc. was tasked with promotions for the city of Boston and was shipped 40 electronic Lite-Brite signs depicting a Mooninite flipping the bird. Then, three employees went around town to destinations with a high traffic of young people and put up the crass illuminated signs. Call the Bomb Squad Two weeks after putting up the signs, the Boston Police Department had the bomb squad on a wild-goose chase. At 9 a.m., the first sign was disposed of in a controlled detonation, and what began as an isolated
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