Almost a year ago I published an infamous post Koodo Mobile in Toronto or why develop a fake brand? which generated a lot of controversy between and my readers (mostly just my friends). Back then I thought couple of things:

1) What is the point in creating of what I call a fake brand or sub-brand of Telus?

2) Originally Koodo was supposed to be targeting younger people and I didn’t understand how is 80′s work out tape relates to the target audience

3) I didn’t think that “fat free mobility” was actually fat free.

So was I right or wrong? I think I was right in some things and that Koodo adjusted in a year and is now looking more like what is supposed to resemble. Here is my reasoning:

-Now almost a year later same advertising agency Taxi 2 changed its advertising campaign from 80′s workout tape to clever new words like “bigbiliffication,” but still kept the same colors.  I think that was a great move as that 80′s tape was annoying the hell out of people. Just check out Twiter if you don’t beleive me. I still don’t know what is the point of people with big mouths, but I think they have a cleaver slogans and it was good they kep the colors to keep the branding going.

-Telus did grow their customer base quite a bit, but is not releasing how much of it is attributed to Koodo.  Somehow I think if the figures were good they would release them openly

-They deviated from “fat free mobility” and now offer: web browsing, mms, call forwarding and when you add all the services it still doesn’t come out that cheap

-They did eliminate service charge – which made them look like an actual discount brand.

I still beleive that brands like Koodo, Fido, and Soho are just one of the way to trick consumers in buyng the same service. Some people do it, because they like marketing others just don’t see any other alternative. My opinion is that when new players like Globalive enter the market Rogers, Bell, and Telus will have to adjust and make their prices reasonable as a a result Koodo, Soho and Fido will have to either disappear or become even more discounted in order to attract customers that would want to use services from new players.

I personally can’t wait for that time. We really need a second GSM company in Canada!

Alright “can’t live without” was just my sales attempt. Still these are no BS tips right from the front of the battlefields of advertising career in Toronto. This post is a work in progress my plan is to gather 100 tips. If you have a tip please leave in a comment.

1. Impression is the reality - is doesn’t matter what you do or know, what matters is what managers and peers think you do. All the tips that follow are just to help you to manage the perception and sell yourself.
2. Being nice pays off – being nice to everybody around you creates a positive aura around you. You stop having problems with accounting and production departments.
3. People talk – rumors in the office are spread faster than you can press “publish” on your twitter account. Think 3 times before you say a word.
4. Drinking Advantage – going out with your co-workers for drinks can help your career if done in a right way. Never get drunk or say anything bad about the company though. It is scientific you will earn more money.
5. Don’t take sides – there are always bunch of wars happening in the office. Never take a side. I know it is hard, but if you are serious about progressing in your career don’t take sides.
6. Looks matter- while the decisions on your promotion should be based on your performance it is rarely the case. Get inside the head of your bosses, their employees represent the company. The feel great when you look great. It doesn’t mean you have to buy super expensive cloths, but being always neat counts
7. Face time – nobody will give you extra pay if you come early and leave late. However, your bosses lilke to see it. You will become a clock watcher and not a motivated employee in their minds if you work 9-5. It doesn’t matter if your sales are great, they still like to see the hours.
8. Make it look hard – if you are a talented person and your sales are rolling in easily please, don’t publicize it. Your bosses want you to work hard, if they think your job is too easy they will make it more challenging.
9. Don’t complaint -you can’t afford to be perceived as a negative person. Never complain, find a way how to get what you want without complaining.
10. Political Savvy – do you shoot from the hip? Say what is on your mind without a regards of consequences? Not going to work in a corporate world, you will be labeled rude. Find a positive way to express whatever you need.
11. Bad projects happen – at some point you will be given a total deadend project. Try your best to put it on someone’s else shoulders. Trust me it doesn’t pay off to challenge the impossible.
12. Is it not the size of the account base – if you just started and received 20 pages of accounts, be carefull. What matters is how much account spent and if they are active. Try to avoid adding dead weight accounts to your base.
13. Document – document everything positive you do. The best way is by email or account updates. Your documentation needs to support your positive image in the company
14. Don’t kiss bottoms – if you do eventually you will realize that you been kissing the wrong one and you will have no respect from your peers. Be nice to your management, but not in a kissing way.
15. Mind the competition-it is ok to make friends in the office however remember that when money comes into the question your “friends” might not be so friendly. Since, I was a sales rep working on a commission – this was a case bunch of times. Always remember that they might be your competition.
16. Never give away sale -never give away what is rightly your sales. Example: a new sales rep came in and by mistake sold your account. Don’t be nice – take it back. If you will be clear about it, nobody will try to mess with your accounts or prospects.
17. Know cofee tastes – caffeine drives corporation. People love people who bring them a cofee. Don’t do it all the time or you will be a bottom kisser. Do know every manager’s way to drink cofee and bring cofee to them on a rotation scheduale each Friday. Small investment – goes a very long way
18. Compliments – make at least couple of compliments per day. This will strengthen your nice image. The best compliment is when your colegue gets a new article of clothing  and you comment how nice they look in it. Be careful with compliments to the opposite sex and keep them sex free.
19. Mind the Jokes – know a great joke? Think twice before telling it in the office. Bunch of people got dinged for telling an “offensive joke.” The rule is to only tell a joke a 5 year old kid would understand.
20. Computer Use – never ever write anything personal on you work computer. Everything you do is completely monitored. Keeping computer work related will help your image in manager’s eyes of being an honest worker.
21. Love the company – you don’t have to actually love the company, but managers need to think that you are passionate from head to toes about the product you are sellig and the company your work for.
22. Find a roof - a roof is what protects you from heat, rain and cold. Find a higher level person in the company who will protect in these times. Choose the person wisely and let the person think that your achievements are due to  his or her contributions. Make sure that the person is following the rules about positive image as well. It will not help your career to be associated with a rebel.
23. Diverisify experience – being the best sales rep in the company will not get you promoted. Get involved with competition comitees or other comitees. Demand to work on variety of projects. That way nobody will through in your face later: you didn’t get position X, because you don’t have X experience
24. Take your boss to apointments - only good ones. Make sure that the customer you are taking your boss to absolutely loves you. Your boss will tell other management that you are being well liked by the clients.
25. Walk Fast – it seems like a minor tip, but if you consistently walk fast it will look like you are always busy and working for the company. You will look way better compared to a guy or a girl who walks really slow.
26. Public Goals - let everyone know that one day you want to become a manager or top sales rep, or whatever your goal is. Let managers know that you have these goals and you are working hard to achieve them.
27. Send Holiday Cards - send or give as many personal postcards as you can on as many occasions that you can. They key to do it consistenly with everyone: peers, management, clients. This will turn people towards you and if by any chance they don’t get postcard from you on Christmas they will wonder what happened to you and will write to you.
28. Don’t rely on email -email is great especially for advertising executive it allows you to pitch hundreds of people at once. However, make a point of physically seing as many people as you can. Needless to say that it is especially true with your top 20%. Seeing them regularly even if it is just to bring cup of cofee and dicuss recent game is imperative to your success. It will be way harder to say “no” to a person that know, than just to write an email message.
29. Be Consistent – whatever efforts you put into creating the image of next coming you have to do it consistently. You have to be know for these things and just as in advertising the key is repetition, repetition, repetition. It is way better to grow your sales by 10% every month, than to have one month at 30% growth and another at 0%.
30. Don’t ask for favours - as thr situation permits try not to owe anything to anyone. Don’t ask for favours, do favours for people and let them feel that they owe you one. You will ask for it when the time comes. Sounds harsh? I am just trying to be real here.

I like statistics. While analyzing google’s traffic sent to my site I found out that my Koodo Mobile or Why Develop a Fake Brand post is my best post ever. Apparently a lot of visitors want to know what is the marketing agency behind these annoying Koodo Mobile ads. I know in Toronto you can see these ads everywhere on buses, downtown and TV.

I will save you some time and the short answer is Taxi 2 Advertising Agency. Taxi 2 is pretty big player in the marketing industry and is responsible for some really creative marketing campaigns. I love their WestJet campaign. However, I still think that both marketing and product offering for Koodo Mobile is a bit questionable. Here are my questions:

• Why would 80′s working out theme appeal to 16-30 year olds? We were not born at that time, so it doesn’t appeal to us as an audience.  Seriously I have no idea how does working out hints at buying a cell phone
• Except stating “fat free mobility” there is no real message in the ad campaign that would tell me why should I go out of my way to check out their website
• I do want to watch TV on my phone,
• I do want to browse internet on my phone for one low flat rate fee per month
• I want cool looking modern devices

At the end of the day except eliminating system access fee I see no difference between Koodo Mobile and other mobile companies in Toronto. If you are asking yourself a question is someone cares if you would disappear tomorrow – the answer is no nobody cares.

Check out this blog I am not sure, but I think the owner of the blog works for Taxi agency and they are brainstorming on some new ideas for Telus. Contribute and he might invite you to a party.

Oh Yeah, if you agree with me or disagree please leave a comment.

Update: New post about Koodo advertising campaign after one year

Since I work for one of the offices of the company (for another 1.5 weeks) that released a new resource www.flyerland.ca. I thought I will post about the site and give them some link juice. Why is www.flyerland.ca good?

• Metroland Media Group is already largest distributor of flyers in Ontario, so the flyers on flyerland.ca are from the original source. That is why that is as comprehensive as it gets. Obviously there are other places where you could get flyers online (www.flyermall.com), but usually they just scan the flyers they get at home.
• It is divided by regions, that is why you can find a flyer that actually applies to your area. A lot of big companies really target their flyers that is why it is again superior to a service that just scans a flyer.
• The navigation is pretty good and flyer can be searched by name or category. I was impressed, because usually this is one of the area my company is struggling. However, this time they actually did a great job
• Is always up-to-date
  

I myself personally don’t look on flyers that much (sold them for too long). However, if you are one of the many people that enjoy the flyers and want the convenience of seeing all the flyers in one location I strongly urge you to visit www.flyerland.ca, to register and  to subscribe for the updates.

P.S. if you are retailer and use flyers I would strongly suggest to contact your Metroland representative and inquire about the site. The pricing is really good and with Metroland’s footprint of 3.5 million readers this good be a great add on to your marketing campaign.

Over the long weekend I read Seth Godin’s post The Bad Table and thought about it a context of a marketing agency in Toronto (or anywhere else for that matter). I thought that marketing agencies concentrate 90% on current accounts. My hypothesis is that agencies rely on the referrals and direct sales to earn the business. Let’s imagine a scenario: I am starting a social project in Toronto for dating couples www.toronto4couples.com and need a help of a marketing agency. I don’t know anyone in the industry and I am not a member of a chamber of the commerce in Toronto. How easy it is to find the one that has an expertise in my industry, is in Toronto and has reasonable rates?

Search:

I am a generation Y Torontonian, so obviously I would have started my search directly from Google. However, before I touch it I thought maybe there are some directories that might help me in the research.

• Yellow pages – a quick search for a marketing agency in Toronto (that doesn’t include suburbs) gives me a list of 76 agencies. Take a look at this page, except three ads at the top none of the listings has a description on agency’s core competency. Moreover, in 90% of the listings the website is not included in the ad. I guess if I would stick with yellow pages I would need to call each one of them to figure out answers to my questions.
• Better Business Bureau – bring me the list of 4 marketing agency with only one of them having a website. I am checking out the website and don’t see anything in their portfolio about branding a website.

• My last resort Google - here is the page I get when typing keyword “Toronto Marketing Agency.” 4 ads on a side and 532,000 pages that include these keywords. My page always displays hundred results and I never go to the page 2. That is why if you are in the Top 100 listings or on sponsored listing side you are out of my sights. The good part of the page in Google that I finally see some descriptions of what agency does.

First Impressions

• I don’t see in descriptions an agency specializing in a start-up, small businesses or web projects
• My first couple of clicks lead me to very flashy and sophisticated intros with no real information on the website like: what exactly did you for the client in portfolio? What is agency speciality? Range of prices?
• I didn’t find anyone with StumbleUpon logo, blog or Twitter account
• Statements like: “Top Ranking instantly” make me feel like  I am being sold to.

Conclusion:

If you are not in the industry and don’t know who to ask for a referral finding a marketing agency in Toronto that suites your specific needs can be very hard. This is ironical since agencies are the one who would preach a business on social marketing andtransparency. How many agencies do you know with a facebook account? At some point soon, I am going to publish a part II of the series where I will dissect the websites more closely and part III where I would talk about what companies in Toronto that do use Web 2.0 marketing.

In meantime if you reading this and have any thoughts, don’t be shy and leave a comment.

The title of Toronto Star’s article is “Israel eyes Toronto for marketing test site.” Since, it is my blog I live in Toronto and am proudly Israeli here is my scoop:

It is about time: any successful business would not just hope that target audience will just get the message – they market to them. Country is no different and especially with a long history of misunderstanding like Israel.

I am not really sure why does Star mean by marketing in Toronto is just a test site. I think Toronto is one of the major metropolitan cities and Torontonians opinion matters. Furthermore, Toronto is the most multicultural city in the world so the task of doing marketing in Toronto is a complex one. Moreover, I think there is a big layer of Toronto population that would be completely averse to this campaign. That is why I think that marketing in Toronto by Israel should be approached very seriously.

One would think that metropolitan cities are the same, but I beg to differ. I moved to Toronto from Chicago and while cities are similar I think the character of marketing campaign needs to be very different in these cities. That is another reason why I don’t think that Israel “tests” Toronto – I think they are actually trying to market to Torontonians.

I hope the guys responsible for branding of Israel and as a matter of fact anyone who is involved in marketing in Toronto would hire at least one person who knows the slightest difference of Torontonians from the rest of North America.

Trust me those slight differences could make a big difference in the acceptance or rejection of the campaign.

Ok enough blogging and let me see if I can volunteer for one. Maybe I can just send them the link to my post? And use my blog as a resume?

I deal with people from Marketing agencies daily and sometimes even in my dreams I am negotiating something. The observation I have is that the old saying :” It is now what you know, but who you know” is very true to even such a field of marketing as media buying.

Really, media buyer is always in a conflict of interests. The agency makes 15% on top of everything they buy, at the same time the budget is usually limited and their goal should be to provide the best bang for the buck for their accounts. In addition to that I find that a lot of agencies buy ad space based on their previous relationships with different sales people. Meaning, if they like a sales rep they would buy an ad only from him or her.

This all leaves agency’s clients in pretty bad spot. Think about it: even if campaign is brilliant, but the buyer buys ads in the wrong place (because of his or her personal preferences) you still waste your money with that agency.

The bottom line of little rant is: if you are buying advertising – do it because it makes sense for your client, not because you like the voice of a person on the phone. If you are a client of marketing agency double check on other options that exist except the one you being presented with.