Frankly, I’m disappointed.
Ever had one of those “Easter Bunny” moments? When you find out something good was a lie from the beginning?
I had one today.
I took some advice from John Carlton about a salesletter I’d written, and was doing some further research on the biz-op market.
When I stumbled across the Young Entrepreneur forums, I found a post by Matthew Newton - the guy behind this summer’s “Save The Mexican Wave” campaign.
Here’s an extract…
“The mexican wave got banned from the cricket in Australia, so I made this site tonight:
And sent it out to a few stations and within 60 minutes I had an interview with SEN radio station in Melbourne (it’s a sports radio station)!!!
Hows THAT for a PR stunt?
Hows THAT for Guerilla Marketing? (go visit the website and you will see what I mean)”
As for Guerrilla Marketing… What does he mean?
“…instead of adsense I have linked to my site Jonk’s Bargains
I have got heaps of hits today on my site”
I’m all FOR driving traffic to web-sites, and making money online, (heck - it’s what I help my clients to do every day!) but in this example, I feel like I’ve been taken for a chump.
It was reported as a poor cricket fan who was fighting the good fight and bringing attention to a just cause.
The ol’ Little Aussie Battler story.
But it turned out to be a sneaky PR stunt designed to promote a business.
…disappointing. 
“PR guru” Pete Williams weighs in…
I chatted about this today with Pete Williams today, a young-gun of the guerrilla Public Relations and Publicity industry.
Back in 2003, Pete “sold the MCG” via a successful publicity campaign where he salvaging carpet and timber from the demolished Ponsford Stand, and turned it into framed memorabilia.
The media had a field day with this!
You can read about him in this month’s Wealth Creator magazine.
Pete offered 3 tips for running a successful publicity campaign for a business which apply to this particular campaign.
Pete’s 3 Lessons For “Save The Wave”-style campaigners
- Stay close to your core business. Direct marketers understand the value of targeted leads.Just because you have more people visiting your web-site, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll make more money. Instead, you want to attract targeted leads - the types of people who are most likely to buy from you.
There’s little value in attracting thousands of cricket fans to your web-site if only a small portion of those people are interested in what you sell - advertising space for discount retailers.
Generally, you’ll get a much better result from your publicity campaign if the people you are targeting, and the business you’re involved in, are closely related to each other.
- Call a spade a spade. If you’re getting a pay-off from a PR stunt, declare it up-front.People hate to be taken for a ride.
And good publicity stunts can backfire (badly) if people feel like they’ve been misled or fooled.
A great example recently has been Turner Broadcasting’s Aqua Teen Hunger Force stunt in Boston. Bostonites were pissed off when they realised a terrorist scare turned out to be a misunderstood corporate guerrilla publicity stunt.
It’s OK to use a social / grass roots campaign to promote your business, or to show that your business cares (like the 12 major companies who recently committed to saving the climate). But don’t try to hide the fact that your business is receiving a pay-off.
- Plan a clear outcome before you begin. A rule I live by when it comes to internet marketing is “always begin with a conversion goal in mind” - something Pete Williams uses in his publicity campaigns too.It’s fine to get a bit of publicity for yourself - but publicity for publicity’s sake doesn’t have much value.
A mistake many people make (which Matthew Newton may have made) is to begin a publicity campaign, and then look for ways to “cash in” on the publicity created as an afterthought.
This can sully the value of the publicity, leading people to think it was just a ploy to cash in on some poor suckers from the start.
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3 responses so far ↓
1 Mat // Mar 20, 2007 at 11:44 pm
Hi Brett
Jonk’s Bargains is a not for profit site.
So the whole crux of this argument “But it turned out to be a sneaky PR stunt designed to promote a business” really turns on a false premise.
My comments on the YE forums were more directed to those that actually are in it for the money. After considering cashing on on STMW I decided not to, publishing a post on my site for free, and with no advertising - about how people can replicate what I did (when applied to business.
I’d appreciate the necessary corrections.
2 Brent Hodgson // Mar 21, 2007 at 12:38 pm
Hi Mat,
Thanks for taking the time to comment on the blog.
Regarding the correction you believe it’s necessary to make to my post - I don’t believe it’s justified.
For the record, here’s a copy of Alexa’s screenshot of your web-site.
http://www.brenthodgson.com/images/jonksbargains.jpg
And here’s a screenshot I took today (shrunk down to the same size so that you can compare the two images).
http://www.brenthodgson.com/images/jonksbargains2.jpg
You’ll notice there is a difference between the two. Because there’s a difference, we know that the site has recently changed.
If you look closely, the change which has occurred is some new content has been added to the homepage.
I’ve enlarged this new content here:
http://www.brenthodgson.com/images/jonksbargains3.jpg
Previously (when I visited the site back on February 7th), the content which appeared in this position on the homepage mentioned the “Save The Mexican Wave” campaign.
The new content which is now in this position announces some new forums being launched, has a signup box for a free newsletter, and (*most importantly* the site NOW says “This is a not-for-profit site.”) I’ve highlighted this area in blue
Just to confirm this, if you do a Google search on your web-site, this page is the only page where the words [not for profit] appear on your site.
(see: http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awww.jonksbargains.com+not+for+profit )
So to be clear, the only indication that Jonks Bargains is a not-for-profit site has only appeared on your web-site recently.
Looking back at this picture (at http://www.brenthodgson.com/images/jonksbargains3.jpg ), you’ll notice I’ve also circled in blue the “Advertise” button at the top of your site.
This suggests that the plan for Jonks Bargains (at some time in the past, or in the future) was to allow companies to advertise on Jonks Bargains to generate advertising revenue, and presumably that revenue would generate a profit for you and/or Jonks Bargains.
It seems others also came to the same conclusion.
See: http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/letters/index.php/theaustralian/comments/god_knows_his_limits/
Note “Andrew of Brisbane” who visited the site on the 6th of February - one day before I did.
On top of this, we have your posts on the Young Entrepreneur Forums which suggest a profit motive:
http://www.youngentrepreneur.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15933
“…should probably write a cheap e-book about it”
“…Anyone think they could give me a couple of tips out of doing an ebook? I am desperate for cash, this exercise has been expensive”
“I’m thinking of doing an e-book because what I did is transferable, and was no fluke, it was calculated.”
Again, all of these comments suggest a profit motive.
In this same thread, there are also comments from other users such as “..awsum [sic] job try and capitalise on it while you can.” “What a stunt! Amazing free publicity.” “nice stunt. Thats gotta boost his traffic surely :D” “Newton seriously you gotta throw some adsense, adbrite on the page.”
In none of your posts in this thread did you correct these people (in the same way that you’re correcting me now).
(As a side note, it’s interesting that your original forum post - the one quoted in my blog post saying “…Hows THAT for a PR stunt?…” - has mysteriously disappeared from the Young Entrepreneur forums.)
And finally - in your own comment to this blog post, you say “After considering cashing in on STMW I decided not to”
As a result of all of this, I still stand by my comments from February 7th.
I don’t believe any “correction” is justified as there has been no evidence presented which suggests my comments were not true or justified at the time that they were published.
Having said that, I’ll keep your comment up here in the interests of fairness - so that people reading my blog can also see your point of view on my post.
Finally, thanks for coming by and offering your perspective on my post. I do appreciate it.
Brent
3 Mat // Mar 21, 2007 at 3:39 pm
Hi Brent
Thanks for the interest you have taken in Jonk’s Bargains. Look, I can see how you arrived at your conclusions, but if you had taken the time to ask the right questions, your conclusions would have been right as well. At least 5 journalists came to me asking those ‘right’ questions and all of them decided to make nothing of it. Given STMW is coated with links to Jonk’s Bargains you can hardly call my actions ’sneaky.’ For those who chose to ask, they got an answer.
The correction to my site was as a result of emails coming in from people who believed just that - that it was for profit.
The thing about Jonk’s Bargains.com is that there’s nowhere near enough content for this site to be monetised to make profit… you should know that. As soon as I had received enough ad dollars to cover my expenses for STMW (after Nova 100.3 chipped in this was $50) I took the ‘advertise’ button down, and all advertising along with it.
“In this same thread, there are also comments from other users such as “..awsum [sic] job try and capitalise on it while you can.” “What a stunt! Amazing free publicity.” “nice stunt. Thats gotta boost his traffic surely :D” “Newton seriously you gotta throw some adsense, adbrite on the page.”
In none of your posts in this thread did you correct these people (in the same way that you’re correcting me now).”
None of these people were insulting me on their blogs, so I saw no need for correction.
Brett, a crucial fact that is missing from this discussion is this:
I DO have a profit making site. That site is http://www.NewtonClothiers.com. While the shirts officially went on sale on March 2 I already had a ’squeeze’ page up to get people to sign up to my email newsletter. But you won’t find any trace of this on SaveTheMexicanWave.com.
I could have chosen to promote my profit-making business, but I didn’t. Paul Heinrichs of The Sunday Age said in an article - after quizzing me about Jonk’s Bargains - ‘after this is over he will go back to importing custom-tailored shirts.’ I received several inquiries from that small line alone. I could have made money from this - you even saw me openly contemplating that fact, which I am not ashamed of - but in the end I chose not to.
Thanks for leaving my response up Brett, I guess people can make their own minds up for themselves.
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