(Note: This is a continuation of the day’s wrap over at Plaid.) Our visit to Swatch proves how people reflect the DNA of the brand they work for, both good and bad. We got thrown out of the Swatch offices. Now, to set the stage lest people think we just show up out of the blue, well, we do. Kind of. But, we send out mass mailings to perspective brands we want to visit ahead of time and follow up with calls.Sure this is a guerilla kind of tour in some ways, but we do notify people, and in some instances have actual appointments scheduled. So after security let us through to ‘marketing,’ we were able to secure a little time with someone really nice in ‘marketing.’ (Name withheld to prevent lawsuit.)
More on that in a sec.
After giving the general pitch we do, there seemed to be some interest expressed. Granted, we know at times we see people when they literally have two minutes. No problem. It sharpens how you pitch things as you tend to cut out the extra 90 ppt. pages agencies tend to present. Plus, we had an interest in the brand as we felt it could use some life.
And then Brandzilla appeared. Like his 20-story counterpart, you hear the voice before actually seeing it. “Who’s here? Who are they?” He rounds the corner making a beeline for Darryl and repeating his soon to be famous mantra “Who are you? What are you doing here. Who invited you?” He didn’t stop to listen. As he turns his attention to shirt-of-the-day ace camera guy Ryan, the threats pour out. “And if I see any footage I didn’t authorize of this on, online, well,...” wait for it, “...I’ll see you in court.”
PLEASE. We’d welcome the traffic on the blog. The reaction was unlike anything we received using the exact same approach. Almost every brand has seen the value of what we’re doing and are really into it. It's too bad, because when BZ came out, the people who obviously worked under him became afraid. Nice way to run a brand. Scare the crap out of your people.
And they didn’t even take a Twinkie. Wonder why Swatch has lost its cool? We blame Brandzilla.
1 comment:
So now in addition to the brand needing some lift, Swatch also gets to invest in some Brand Reputation Management.
Throw a label on here that says "swatch" and one of their corporate blog watchers will read this and realize what a mistake Brandzilla made.
Way to go, Swatch. You just got yourselves more PR in one blog post than you've had in a decade. You apparently didn't know who you were dealing with. This is the new media, friends. And antics like you just pulled make the rounds very fast.
You just might get invited back, Bill - with apologies from camera-shy guy, plenty of swag - and a polite audience to hear you out.
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