“Made To Share.” That’s Great! Where’s The Mention Of Sites We Should Be Sharing On?

I am sure most Canadians who are reading this blog recognize the logo above. I have taken the actual brand name out but I am aware that most of you will recognize the brand that made these commercials.

The brand name, however, is the only thing I have taken out of this screen shot. As I discussed in my previous post on removing barriers to engagement I have to wonder how it hasn’t occurred to this brand to include some links or information to their social media presences or even their website. Nothing, nada, not a word written. The campaign is called “Made to SHARE” for crying out loud! How has no one suggested to this brand that they actually make things sharable!

Before I go on let me make clear that, yes, I understand the campaign’s point is to encourage people to share the product amongst their friends but the word share has taken on a whole new meaning. As well, the actual ad that prompted this post was based around the idea of a picture of a guy being shared around by his family and friends on different mediums (phones, tablets, and computers) so it is obviously being done via some sort of online sharing even if it is only being done via email (unlikely as that is in this day and age).

This kind of makes me want to bang my head on the wall over and over and I am not an advertising professional. Maybe there is something here I am missing something that is obvious to anyone actually in the business but to me it seems like a massive miss. Not only isn’t any information listed on the advertising spot as shown above, they don’t have a YouTube channel where they can put up for ready access all their “Made to share” advertising spots so people can….wait for it….SHARE THEM! 

Why? Please. Tell. Me. Why. It makes absolutely zero sense to me that they wouldn’t be attempting to convert this campaign by encouraging it go viral. Seems like a pretty obvious move to me but, again, maybe I am missing something.

Why Do Brands Expect Us To Find Them On Social Media?

As the title of this post implies today we are going to talk about brands and how they expect the consumer/customer to interact with them. I have been seeing quite a few ads and commercials recently where the advertiser wants to show their 21st Century savvy and how they are available on different social media platforms but they do it like you see in the picture above. The announce to the world (or whoever is seeing the ad) that, yes, they are present on those platforms but they seem to think that we all like to play a game of Where’s Waldo with them.

Waldo via Waldo Wiki

 I mean, I loved sitting on trips with my family when I was a kid and opening one of the Where’s Waldo books but that was recreational and something to do when we were sitting in an airport/on a plane/in a car and had nothing better to do. The point of advertising and being present on the various social media platforms is so that the consumer and potential customers can engage with the brand/advertiser. Don’t make it difficult for us!

This shouldn’t be news to anyone either. Heck, I recently was in the the new shop on Queen St West called Community 54 where they have old arcade video games from way back in the day. One of those games, Wayne Gretzky’s 3D Hockey, was from late enough (1996) that they thought it relevant to mention that the game had a site on this newfangled thing called the Internet. But they didn’t just announce this fact, they didn’t put “WE ARE ON THE INTERNET” and expect people to go out and find them. If you look in the picture below you can see exactly what they wrote because I snapped a picture of it.

They told people to “Check out these WEB sites” and then listed them. Done. Consumer can easily interact with those two websites assuming they had computers and access to the Internet. But at leas they didn’t lose them in the potentially interested person having to do any work to engage with the brand.

Some more examples below:

And

To be fair, the second one of the above pictures, from Union Station in Toronto, they did point to the account @unionstationTO on Twitter for us to engage with but they didn’t bother for some reason with Facebook to do the same. My guess as to why this is is because they didn’t bother to get a custom URL for their page before printing up this signage (they have’t, it seems, bothered to register a custom URL even to this day). This is just laziness plain and simple (in my opinion).

In conclusion, this is a message to all Brands, Advertisers, and Marketers: Remove barriers to engagement don’t erect them.

Have you seen similar displays as I pictured above? Have you ever gone out and actually engaged with a brand afterward or did you just say screw it because it was too much work? Let me know in the comments below.

(And in case you are wondering, no I have never bothered looking into the above pictured brand’s Twitter and Facebook accounts. As well, here’s a link provided by the Way Back Internet Machine for Gretzky.com in 1998. I couldn’t get Midway.com because it just redirects to Warner Bros which bought their assets in 2009 when Midway went bankrupt.)

Lysol’s New Automatic Soap Pump

I just saw an ad for this new Lysol Automatic Hand Soap Pump. The commercial said that a ton of germs are on the top of hand soap pumps and therefore we need to buy this Lysol product. The product has a motion sensor which dispenses the hand soap automatically so you don’t ever have to touch the germ riddled top of the dispenser.

While I applaud the idea that Lysol has to market a new product and create demand for it my main questions regarding this new product are:
(1) Why do I need this product? Aren’t I washing my hands right after I touch the top of the soap dispenser? I don’t know anyone who touches the soap dispenser after they wash their hands with the soap from the dispenser.
(2) Can’t I just spray the top of my regular soap dispensers with regular Lysol disinfectant or just wipe it with rubbing alcohol to kill all those germs that are supposedly there?

Like I said I applaud the effort Lysol and I wish you all the luck in the world convincing people to buy it. However, I still think this product is completely useless.

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