Secret Missions for the Blogosphere
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We’ve been up and running here at CI Sense for a few months, and we decided that it was high time that we connected with a few of our fellow bloggers and journalists in the branding and marketing space. We know they’re all busy, so we thought we’d try to connect with them in an offbeat fashion.
We created a little story, about CI Sense being a ‘machine that can predict the future’, and crafted a little path for each person to follow. It began with a letter–a physical letter made to look like a mid-century CIA memo. We sent them in little oblong envelopes, with that little twisty string fastening (for some reason, that seemed crucial). They looked like this:
Each of these letters points to a discrete (and discreet) page on CI Sense’s site. The pages each feature a personalized video, inviting (in a manner of speaking) the letter recipient to check out CI Sense. Here’s an example:
We got the excellent Monica Hamburg to do a kind of Russian Frau Farbissina, complete with accent and bold makeup. The pages also include an introductory screencast about CI Sense, and credentials to get full access to the service.
We like the snail mail option because, obviously, people receive far less physical mail than the electronic stuff. We hope that it catches their attention (assuming, you know, it isn’t counted as a false positive by a human spam filter). Plus, it’s just a lot more fun than sending a plain old email.
These are the folks who we sent letters to:
| Armin Jonah Bloom Laura Ries Mike Wagner David Kiley John Moore Nancy Friedman Jim Thompson |
Mike Bawden Miro Slodki William Lozito Dan McHugh Mitch Betts Dana Vanden Heuvel Kate Trgovac |
Good luck to all the agents!
3 Ways to Smell Your Competition a Mile Away
How do you know that your competition is planning to launch a new product?
Always be on the lookout for the Big Three: Trademark, Domain Name & Slogan. The first indication would, of course, be that they have filed a new trademark. But if you find not only a new trademark, but also a new domain name (for instance, the mark itself) registered as well, there is a good chance something new (e.g. a new direction) is in the works often in the form of a microsite. And if you find another trademark - but this one is in the form of a slogan, it’s quite obvious a new marketing push is underway.
For instance, last June Procter & Gamble, among other marks, filed:
- “Clinical Strength”
- “Because You’re Hot”
- “Secret, Because You’re Hot”
On the same day, the domain name becauseyourehot.com was also registered. All three were for “Goods” described as “Antiperspirants, body sprays etc…” That domain is now the website for Secret’s new “teen focussed” deodorant, Sparkle Body Spray, “an extension of the Secret Sparkle line of teen deodorant”.
It’s amazing what you can sniff out when you follow the scent.
