Three for Thursday - December 24

Merry Christmas Eve folks!

Today I've pulled together three cool ideas... but in most cases they are things I've covered before in one shape or form. None-the-less, all three offer cool, interesting ideas to marketers.

As always, love to hear what y'all think of these ideas, this series or even better, tell us all about the cool things you're finding.

Low Cost Short Code Campaigns
Reactee lets you create t-shirts with a custom question on them. Now that in and of itself isn't all that cool but what makes Reactee's shirts different is that they talk back. The shirts tell others to send a unique short code of your choosing to 41411 and within seconds a custom message is texted back to them. Yes, you also control the message. I created one to help promote my NolaDeals idea. You can see the shirt here. The shirt costs $20 a piece but that is a bargain when you think about it because once you have the short code, you can put it on anything. So I can create business cards, signs, stickers, even ads that say, "This [insert medium here] is worth $1,000. Text NolaDeals to 41411 to find out why." and presto, instant Short Code Campaign... for a mere $20. Best of all, the site tracks in-bound requests for the short code so you even get a rudimentary metric dashboard to see if you're getting traction.

Micro-Content Destination Sites
For the last few years I've become more and more convinced that the future of marketing/branding lies in brand supported Micro-Content that is hyper-syndicated across user chosen channels. This approach will lead to deeper consumer-brand conversations vs just more advertising campaigns.  But as of today, I don't know that I've seen a lot of these campfire conversations done right (IMHO). Enter ShoeTube. ShoeTube is just what you think it is... a YouTube for shoe lovers. All video, all shoes, all the time. I don't think they are 100% there yet, but getting might close. If I was a shoe company targeting females, or a shoe store, I'd be looking over at this site and trying to find a way to partner. Just saying.

Anti-Sale Marketing
% off sales are retailer crack. Things start slowing down and rather than attack the underlying root problem, retailers resort to sales to drive customers into the store. The problem is that consumers have gotten wise and now the fear of paying more today versus less at some point in the near future when the product goes on sale actually incentivizes some consumers to postpone purchases. Gap Canada is testing an interesting program to help encourage consumers to buy when they want/need vs waiting for sales. With their Sprize program, customers sign up and then their purchases are tracked. If the price on anything they buy drops within 45 days of purchase, the customer receives a credit good towards future purchases at the Gap. Interesting because it gives the customer an excuse not to wait because they are "protected" and Gap wins because the "savings" they give back to the customer can only be spent at the Gap versus just discounting a product and maybe the customer spends their savings with you and maybe they don't. A really smart program I think... wonder if it will ever come to the consumer electronics world? Wouldn't that be grand!

Well that's all for this edition of Three for Thursday folks. Have a safe, happy and merry Christmas. And remember, if you see something cool that we should share with everyone here -- send it to me!!!