This caught my eye over the weekend – first, because I think it’s a great idea. Second, because it involves Trek, our very own client.

David C. Joyce, president of Ripon College [WI], wants to make a deal with new students this fall: Leave the car at home for the first year and get a free Trek mountain bike. To keep.

The college has purchased 200 Trek bikes to give to a portion of the roughly 300 first-year students that will arrive in the fall. After students sign a honor code, saying that they will not bring a car to campus that year, they get a bike, a helmet, and a bike lock, altogether worth about $400. The program is supported by college donors, trustees, and alumni, and the college got discounts on the equipment from Master Lock and the Trek Bicycle Corporation, which is based 60 miles south of Ripon.

Read the full story here.

I recently did a presentation to the Milwaukee Internet Marketing Association on how brands need to leverage the web to help build loyal consumers and convert them into what we call “Brand Champions.”

It was interesting pulling this presentation together because the thoughts I captured are at the heart and soul of what we as a firm work to deliver for every brand we work with when we create any program. Creating Brand Champions requires a discipline and focus that extends far beyond the marketing department. From product development, to service, to sales, to dealer relations there isn’t an area of an organization that doesn’t impact a brand’s ability to create lasting, meaningful relationships with their consumers. Steve Rubel wrote a post on Micro Persuasion “Preaching to the Converted” almost three years ago that I believe extends to how brands should approach all their work online.

1. FIND where your target consumers and brand champions are interacting online
2. LISTEN to what they are saying to better understand what they want and need from your brand
3. ENGAGE your users in a dialogue and create new ways for your consumers to interact with your brand
4. EMPOWER your Brand Champions to create stories and lead conversations about your brand to actively influence others

I cover these in my presentation with examples of how LISTENING, ENGAGING and EMPOWERING your users within a Brand’s site can help create Brand Champions. Check out my presentation and I would love to hear your point of view on the topics covered.

I live right next to a big park, and I’m constantly amazed at the fact that it’s almost always empty. It’s the kind of place I would have spent much of my time as a kid. Of course, when I was a kid (here we go) we didn’t have MySpace, World of Warcraft or cell phones with internet access. Our version of World of Warcraft was hitting each other with sticks.

I won’t say those were better days, but I do believe we’re losing touch with the physical world. This article from The Guardian confirms that. It says that the number of people participating in outdoor activities has fallen precipitously since the 1980’s. The culprit? Videophilia, a preference for indoor media activities. Translation: MySpace, Facebook, RuneScape, texting, Nintendo DS, PSP, PS3, Wii, instant messaging, first person shooters, email, MP3 players and smart phones, to name a few. Who has time to go outside?

We need to make time.

The Guardian article goes on to say that by staying inside, we’re putting the environment at risk. People become environmentalists because they love the outdoors. You can’t fall in love with the outdoors if you’ve never been there.

But the environment is not the only thing to suffer as a result of our decreasingly active lives. According to our friends at the President’s Challenge, two-thirds of Americans are obese or overweight. Coincidence?

I humbly suggest that we all try a new game. It’s massively multiplayer (6+ billion users), high-rez and rendered in stunning 3D with immersive sound. It’s free to play and you don’t need any technology. It’s called the real world. Log out and give it a try! Unplug the kids and bring them along too. Throw a ball, ride a bike, chase each other around the park, play disc golf. If you’re short on ideas, visit the President’s Challenge website for some inspiration.

And don’t forget to take some pictures for your MySpace page.

If you answered yes, and your list only includes the brands which are in your immediate competitive space (the ones you see year after year at that Vegas trade show) – this is your wakeup call. It’s true, you ultimately will be competing for a sale against like brands, but what happens before a consumer decides to purchase a specific item; let’s say a fishing pole for example. Prior to that decision, a consumer is likely shopping for a form of recreation or entertainment, rather than a brand or product. This effectively increases your brands competitive landscape. You’re now fighting other forms of recreation/entertainment AND their respective brands.

With that said, it’s crucial that you begin looking inside and outside your industries to gain knowledge and insight when establishing your benchmarks. Whether they’re brand, product or service related – the perspective to be gained is invaluable. This will help in developing smarter products/services and ultimately a more compelling brand experience. Unless of course you’re content being the “smart follower” in your industry.

If the notion of more competition is making your stomach turn, rest easy. Here are some tips to help you navigate an ever-evolving brand landscape:

• Look around you and learn from others
• Treat “emotion” as a benchmark
• Know your competition (inside/outside your industry)
• Benchmark all facets of your business (product, brand, service, etc)
• Create great products as well as great brand experiences
• Identify key consumer trends/habits/preferences

You’ll be competing with anyone and everyone, which means you need to keep an eye on anyone and everyone…

If we were to analyze the current presidential race more like a product with a marketing goal versus a politician with an agenda – who has the most compelling brand? Which one of these “Brandidates” is doing the best job at delivering their message to the marketplace? Effectively creating a point of difference, cutting through the clutter and converting consumers?

A presidential campaign is no different than classic brand marketing strategy:

• Create awareness
• Develop understanding
• Gain preference and establish advocates

I’m sure all the heavy-weight campaign strategists understand this simple structure…???

They all have value propositions and taglines, integrated communication strategies, target markets and even logos. So, when all things are equal in the brand asset bank, what really positions a “Brandidate” for success? I think it’s the classic attribute – emotion. All great brands connect emotionally with their consumer. There is authenticity, delivered consistently in a compelling manner. If you were to think about it like this, which “Brandidate” has the best chance to be number with market share, retention rates, unaided awareness, and brand advocacy – the holy grail of marketing?

The New York Times is even comparing Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama’s websites in terms of Mac versus PC branding. Which is which? Find out here.

Common sense tells us that if we hear good things about a company or a product, we’re more likely to use that product. In the online world, this is now a proven fact. If you’re considering adding online reviews to your site, you might want to take a look at the results of a large-scale study recently conducted by comScore with The Kelsey Group.

• Nearly 1/4 of internet users read reviews before paying for an offline service.

• 97% of those surveyed who said they made a purchase based on an online review said they found the review to have been accurate.

• Reviews generated by fellow consumers had a greater influence than those generated by professionals.

• Consumers are generally willing to pay at least 20% more for a service that received an “Excellent” rating.

Read the full study results here.

I like to think I’m too optimistic to put much stock in the phrase, “Believe half of what you see and none of what you read.” But with the proliferation of blogs, the ease of setting up a simple website and the ability to make a quick buck (really a quick nickel) by brokering internet visitors from one site to another, I’m starting to turn the corner on the “read” part of that pessimistic adage. This is especially true when researching products online, using product reviews (editorial not user-generated) as a primary source of information and letting them guide the shopping process.Consider the following exchanges:

(Pat approaches Terry who is sitting at the computer…)
Pat: Hey, what are you doing?
Terry: Researching digital cameras…
Pat: Oh. (pause) Are we getting a new digital camera?
Terry: Maybe…
Pat: OK. (pause) What site is that?
Terry: (shrugs) Dunno. I just typed “Digital Camera Reviews” into Google
Pat: Oh. (pause) Google’s awesome. (looking over Terry’s shoulder and pointing at the screen) That one looks good.
Terry: (nods) Yeah, this site seems to really like {insert brand name with good reviews} and not {insert brand name with bad reviews}. Look at this review - one and a half stars.
Pat: Wow. Really? Hmm. I always thought those were good cameras.
Terry: I know. Me too. I’d never buy a {insert brand name} now.

(Meanwhile, back at the agency…)

Client: One of our dealers found this site - have you seen it? Do you know who these guys are? They’re reviewing our products…
Agency: Hmm…I haven’t seen this site before. We’ll see what we can find out.
Client: OK. Thanks.

(Later that day…)

Agency: I’ve got an update for you.
Client: Go ahead.
Agency: Well, it looks like they’re an affiliate marketing site. They make about $8 on average for every person who directly buys a camera after reading a review and click’s off to buy online. There are some other components to the program but that’s pretty much the gist of it.
Client: Oh. (pause) Do you think that’s why they’re bashing our product? Because they make money when visitors buy {insert brand name with good reviews} and not ours?
Agency: It could be.
Client: Hmm. (pause) What do you think we should do?

“What do you think we should do?” That’s an interesting question for manufacturers, retailers, consumers and consultants. One that will get worse I fear before the karmic balance of the information superhighway weeds out the predators — those willing to mislead under the guise of legitimate editorial reviews so they can collect their nickels. Now, don’t get me wrong. I like (strike that) LOVE the spirit of entrepreneurialism. I’m a big fan of the almighty Dollar, Euro and Yuan. I enjoy reading about savvy, hardworking people finding new and interesting ways to make a living in the information age. I research products, shop online, and appreciate eCommerce affiliate programs. Why not pay people who bring in leads that close?

For me, it’s the suspect reviews. And here’s the classic example of abuse: all the products in the category are “reviewed” but interestingly, only those that are linking to an eCommerce site by way of an affiliate marketing program get the “two thumbs up” rating. Hmm.

It’s an issue that I feel the Google-searching American public should be made aware of. Good thing every one of them is reading this post…

I suppose we could teach the average online product review reader how to sift through source code to spot if the, “Learn more about this product” links routes through Commission Junction or Moola Moola. I’ll start with Mom…who turns 75 in a couple weeks… Maybe “View Source” isn’t going to work.

National exposure by the news media would help. If anyone from 60 Minutes is reading this, call me.

What do you think we should do?

I’m involved in our ongoing research, Active Insights, which is a study of the mindsets of those who live an active lifestyle. Recently we were discussing how motorized sports fit into our research. After reading a recent Sierra Magazine article about ATV riding, I was intrigued to learn about the growth of this activity in the US. According to this article, “Off-road recreation in this country has grown enormously in the past three decades, jumping from 5 million users in 1972 to 51 million in 2004.” With that sort of growth, it might be an activity that deserves more attention from us as we focus on active lifestyles.

But why the huge growth trend? Sierra asserts, “While backpacking numbers are going down, the refinement of off-road engineering has yielded a wide array of vehicles at a multitude of price points, making off-roading, for many, the default way to interact with nature.” That may be one reason for the growth of these activities, but given the tenfold increase in the past 30 years of off-roading, I wonder if there’s even more to it. Could the psychographics of off-roaders give us a better insight into the other active people we’re studying?

Maybe it’s time for us to include motorized sports enthusiasts in our research. Depending on how we define “active”, they may or may not belong there alongside the paddlers and cyclists. Let’s start that debate here. I’ll go out on a limb and say “yes!” we should include motor sports. Why not? It would be interesting to see how they compare psychologically with our other survey respondents. What do you think?

How far would you go to protect the integrity of your brand? Would you be willing to walk away from millions of dollars of potential sales? Would you turn your back on a channel that would get your product in nearly 4,000 stores across the country? Would you go to unprecedented lengths to ensure the tradition, product quality and personal service your customers associate with your brand remain at the very highest levels? Jim Wier did.

Wier is a former VP with lawn equipment maker Simplicity, owners of the Snapper brand. When faced with the prospect of helping Wal-Mart build their outdoor power equipment business around Snapper, Wier instead decided to pull his mowers from Wal-Mart’s shelves.

Pretty gutsy move. But Wier understood the history and tradition of the Snapper brand, the company’s ruthless commitment to product quality and its dedication to unparalleled customer service which was entrusted to a network of more than 10,000 independent dealers. He also understood that those people who were passionate about mowing their lawns and who took great pride in its appearance wanted, needed, the very best brand experience.

Charles Fishman’s January, 2006 Fast Company article, “The Man Who Said No to Wal-Mart”, is a classic. It is a must-read for anyone who is entrusted with caring for and nurturing a brand and the customers who are passionate about it. Read it here.

I just read this quote in a new book with the world’s longest title, called “Join the Conversation: How to Engage Marketing-Weary Consumers with the Power of Community, Dialogue and Partnership” by Joseph Jaffe, John Wiley & Sons press, 2007:

In the “age of engagement,” there are four fundamentals to keep in mind:

1. The Internet is the center of the universe.
2. The experience is the brand differentiator.
3. The database is the primary marketplace.
4. The technology is the explosive ingredient.

I found it to be a very helpful way of thinking about the collision of marketing and technology that we continue to explore and exploit.

I feel that Hanson Dodge Creative is in a very nice position to exploit three of the four fundamentals in this age of engagement. With the database being our next frontier to conquer. One that we are determined to take on.