When was the last time you were deciding on a new restaurant, cafe or pub and didn’t turn to the Internet (whether at your desk or on your phone) to get directions, a review or even see who else might be there? Since I’m pretty nerdy the answer for me is that it would be completely out of character not to do a little online reconnasence work about the place before I suggest it to a group of friends. While I am on the far end of the spectrum that spectrum has definitely tipped to the point where I believe the majority of us now look up a place online before making a decision to go there.

Therefore, I am often surprised when I talk with small business owners and specifically owners of restaurants, coffee shops, bars etc how few of them are really aware that they have an amazing opportunity to promote their business by simply making it easy for customers to write positive (the negative reviewers seem to figure it out for themselves cuz their pissed) reviews or encourage a “check-in” on Foursquare, Yelp or Gowalla. Of course most of these businesses are already to be found on Yelp (and other review sites) but too few business owners have taken the time to beef up the user generated content (that makes up their listing) with their own images, descriptions and announcements. Even less of them seem to realize that there is a real bottom line business benefit to using these sites as a marketing channel and growing their brand by making it easy for the customers that love them to say something nice in an online review.

While it would take a lot more than my personal surveying to put hard numbers to it  (one study by the Yellow Pages Association and comScore found that local search for businesses, products and services grew 58 percent last year and reached 15.7 billion searches, more than a tenth of overall search traffic) I’ve made mention of my theory of “check-in currency” in a previous post so won’t dive into it here but in realizing how few of these business owners are taking advantage of this new digital currency I thought I would share some examples of businesses that are taking advantage of social media and local search to drive retail business and leave you with some simple tips that businesses can and should be using to promote themselves via online reviews.

There are many great examples of companies that are really using social media and local search to their advantage. As I have shared before Tasti D-Lite has integrated FourSquare into their loyalty program but you can also look to Jeff Diamond, co-owner of Farmstead Cheeses and Wines as a leader who makes sure he takes the time to reply personally to every comment/review left on Yelp. In one case, a reviewer complained that the person behind the counter was rude. Mr. Diamond sent a private message to the customer, apologized and asked for details. It turned out the employee who helped this customer was hard of hearing. By the end of the exchange, this onetime critic had joined the store’s wine club. He has since become a loyal customer. Or how about Danny Leclair, co-owner of Studio DNA hair salons in Los Angeles and Santa Monica, Calif., who uses Yelp and local search to promote special offers he said 50 percent of his new business now comes from Yelp, 30 percent from Citysearch and 10 percent from Google searches.

These businesses are not run by the most tech savvy individuals, but they’ve taken the time to invest a little bit of brain power in learning how to make the most of what are essentially free marketing tools. Telling you all this is of little value if I don’t leave you with some easy things you can do to boost your local and social marketing efforts today with $0 invested.

Starting at the very top of the heap lets talk Google and specifically Google Local which is now technically Google Places. The point is that you don’t want to miss having your proper store information, pictures, links etc on Google so that you show up when people try to find you specifically or even when they make a general search. Believe me your business seems a lot more important when it shows up on a Google Map and your competition’s business is nowhere to be found.

So visit Google Places and get your information in there. I would also recommend you ensure your listing at Bing is up to date

Head here at Yelp and take the time to watch their video and understand how to get your business online if it is not already there or claim your listing if someone else has review you.

Yelp also gives you some great tools to understand who is visiting your listing and offers you all the tools you need to respond to reviews. If you think you will have the time to consistently reply to reviews on Yelp I think that it offers an extremely personal way to let people know that your business is about people regardless of what it is that you sell.

Next go to FourSquare and claim your business and if you really want to be amongst the coolest kids on the block create some specials based on the number of check-ins at your location and of course reward the Mayor. Foursquare makes it very simple to do and you’ll be shocked how many of your iPhone, iPad, Blackberry and Android toting customers appreciate your way of recognizing them. FourSquare will even help you get some stickers to promote that you are a welcome place for users and a great check-in location. People who check-in buy things and in the end you’re the winner.

Not only does FourSquare also provide you detailed stats like Yelp, it also has a proximity based mobile ad network that you will be a part of by offering FourSquare specials. These tools are again free so really what are you waiting for.

Of course every business should be knocking it out of the park with Facebook and nobody has laid it out better than Mashable here and Tamar here.

Finally, I’d highly recommend you begin Tweeting if you are not already using Twitter you read this guide by Mashable and started right away.

Remember that social and local can be your best friends if you take advantage of a few free tools and follow through on the best practices you find.

Good luck and thanks for reading.

There is no doubt that people love loyalty programs and retailers love the fact that you come back time and time again spending hundreds to earn a free item or small value perk. However when was the last time you actually wanted to take the time to dig through your wallet for your loyalty card? How many of those little tags can one person actually carry on their keys? Basically the loyalty program was getting stale. Sure there were iPhone apps that stored your card and let you present it virtually but that doesn’t do much to advance these loyalty programs in a way that made them work for the new ‘connected’ and ‘social’ customer. So I was impressed earlier this month when Mashable reported on a story where Tasti D-Lite (a frozen yogurt chain) announced that they were rolling out a new program (called TastiRewards if you care) that incentivised customers that linked both Twitter and Foursquare to the store’s loyalty program. It’s an incredibly simple concept when you think about it and the idea of loyalty combined with location services and social networking has a ton of potential if Foursquare (or others) help build out the business and make it simple for retailers to get on board. It’s this last point about integrating and showing value (versus simply signing them up to get numbers) to retailers that I think Foursquare will need to concentrate its efforts in order to make loyalty programs a decent size revenue stream.

Foursquare Loyalty Requires Metrics & Analytics

To keep it simple I will use the Tasti D-Lite as my example throughout. Like most loyalty programs, Tasti D-Lite has a traditional card program where customers can use their TreatCards to earn points for purchases, however those that opt-in to the new social media part of the program will automatically earn additional points for their ‘check-ins’ which are shared on both Foursquare and Twitter. It’s brilliantly simple, customers register their cards on the MyTasti website and then enable their Twitter and Foursqure accounts to automatically send tweets and check the customer in (with a ‘shout’) on Foursquare. From the consumer perspective you’re pretty damn happy as you earn points just for showing up in the store and then get a bonus (on top of the regular rewards) for each dollar you spend.  Tasti D-Lite is also thrilled with this arrangement because they instantly get the best advertising possible, word-of-mouth and they get to tap into your social network without having to take the time to advertise or court any of them. It’s actually the epitome of a situation working for all involved.

Foursquare = Tasty Rewards?

So this seems to just work and kudos to both Foursquare and Tasti D-Lite for the innovation. However, I do believe that for this to be a sustainable revenue stream for Foursquare they will have to offer more value to the retailers than simply linking up with their existing loyalty programs. In order for Foursquare to be able to make some real money off this they will need to actively partner with someone to create a  back-end loyalty CRM system that retailers can log into and actually get some useful data from and will further have to help retailers utilize these loyalty programs. Let me explain…

If I am a retailer I intrinsically believe that it is great that my customers will now be telling each other of the rewards they earned and will help promote the business via tweets and check-ins, but if there are no metrics available it will be impossible for me to really attribute increased revenue with the loyalty program and to further know what pieces of the social media loyalty program are working (including at which locations) etc.  It will be tough for Foursquare to ever fully monetize because neither they nor the retailer will be able to objectively determine the value of non-tracked tweets and check-ins. Further without a good system for actively tracking metrics and actively monitoring (+ reporting on) the tweets (e.g. think CoTweet with some Salesforce built in) there is a risk that the program will become nothing more than an afterthought for retailers and nobody pays for an afterthought. Finally, by having a metrics and analytics system that allows for some decent reporting Foursquare would be able to aggregate information from all the loyalty programs and create a professional services/consulting arm with best practices etc.

Following this idea of professional services or at least some consulting, I also think that Foursquare will have to come up with a standard loyalty program for retailers with no current program and loyalty program ‘connector’ so that they can easily integrate those major retailers who have already invested time and dollars into their own loyalty program. I say this because while someone at Tasti D-Lite was obviously quite savvy and was able to work with Foursquare to implement this program it is apparent that the critical mass of retailers will not be approaching Foursquare, rather Foursquare will have to approach them (or at the very least have a sales person who is trying to sign them up) and explain why the program will work for them, how they get started and perhaps even hand-hold (e.g. create templates for emails to be sent to existing loyalty members or get tons of Moo Cards printed to hand out with a street team) through the launch process.

I don’t know exactly how Foursquare is planning on monetizing their business but loyalty programs seem to be an obvious source of at least some recurring revenue. You’d be surprised at how much money, time and even more money traditional retailers pour into loyalty programs. While they will be tempted to try out Foursquare, if it does not connect into their traditional program and/or Foursquare cannot offer its own metrics and analytics I just don’t believe there will be enough of a business case for retailers to see it as anything other than a gimmick.

In the Mashable article they raise a very similar point and they go on to point out that with a little effort Tasti D-Lite (or in my mind Foursquare in conjunction with any retailer) can use the data it receives from check-ins to  ”collect, analyze and apply to budget discussions around allocating resources to social media efforts.” However I think the analytics need to be a bit deeper than simply being able to get accurate accounts on the quantity of tweets/check-ins with card swipes – Loyalty programs are not new and those who do them well (e.g. Air Miles) know that there is a wealth of information to be gleaned from consumers through these programs. While Foursquare is definitely on the right track with this cool initiative it will be interesting to watch whether they really go after loyalty programs as a real revenue stream or just one that has netted some positive publicity.

So you’ve got a business idea or maybe even for the most advanced in my readership, a business plan. You’ve heard a lot about your elevator pitch and the many ways in which to raise money. So the next step in your plan is to get mainstream buy in for your idea. Yet how do you do this if your idea is complex and new? You need to break down your idea into bite size and intellectually digestible pieces. The person you are pitching to must intrinsically get your business the moment after you pitch it or the pitch flat out was not worth it. So how to explain a tough concept? Why not spend a fair bit of dough (this was not entitled the “free way to get noticed”) and get some experts to help you tell your story. If you really want to go for the gold, how about the guys from Epipheo Studios who were good enough for Google, twice.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDu2A3WzQpo

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwVX42Amcak

I’m not just talking about any group of talented individuals because if you need a guy who is awesome I’d just send you to Marc Lostracco, but if you need an agency who knows how to explain technology or even say Rosh Hashanah, go visit the kind folks at Ephipheo.

I have to admit that I quite enjoyed my own open letter to Starbucks, so I thought I’d bring back the format in this my open letter to Motorola.

Dear Motorola,

I don’t work for you and to be honest I haven’t owned one of your products for a while, but I know enough to know that you are undoubtedly the leader in bluetooth headsets for mobile phones.  I say this not to flatter you but to remind you that your market dominance is always at stake and that you can and should use your power in the market to continue to dominate. To that end, I’m here with a little suggestion for you and it goes something like this.

With all the states, provinces and other jurisdictions enacting laws that prohibit the use of cellular phones without a handsfree option there are going to be a mass amount of people who need to get in the market for your products quickly. Now of course you could take the traditional approach and offer some deep discounts right around the same time these various pieces of legislation pass, and I suggest you do. But here is where I think you can use your deep pockets to both make yourself look good and garner new customers. First why don’t you reach out to every law enforcement agency that is going to have to hand out tickets and offer them a coupon for $25 off any of your bluetooth headsets and $50 off any of your in-car setups. Talk about Guerrilla Marketing, you end up making the boys and girls in blue your street team, literally! Now while, we’re at it, why not tell the same police and governments that you will do a joint awareness campaign with them and get them to foot 50% of the marketing campaign that you were going to run anyway?

Nobody (just ask Maria Shriver) is going to be happy getting pulled over for using their phone, but I’m pretty sure that those same people will be picking up a bluetooth device sometime shortly after getting the ticket. So there is a completely new customer base up for grabs and I’m happy to give you what I think is a leg up. Since you don’t pay me and I’m quite confident that I’m not going to get any swag in the mail from you as a result of this suggestion I’ll let you do the math on the budget and break-even for this type of campaign, but I’m a betting man and I’m betting you can’t go wrong.

So with that, I thank you for your time and if you’re feeling generous after reading this letter I am happy to take any and all payments for the marketing campaign suggestions contained herein. You know where to reach me.

Michael G. Cohen

Short post cuz the video pretty much says it all and I can’t take any credit here.

If you want to read the original post and get your hands on many of the sources as well as the stats go here. If you want to see a presentation (different authors) with very similar statistics on slideshare go here.

Grab some popcorn cuz its a few minutes but its good.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8

If you haven’t seen this post by Engadget you missed a good one. Obviously Microsoft got caught with their pants down so to speak. I can understand using different agencies in different countries and thus not having continuity in your marketing from region to region – even though you should. I recommend using the same agency globally for a product and then if called for regionalizing the message. What I do not understand nor recommend is using Photo Shop to crop an African American’s head for a Caucasian person’s head! And let me take it a step further and say even if the designer was going to be that callus and insanely lazy, could they at least have taken the time to change the colour of the man’s arms – cuz he’s pretty tanned on the arms in the second picture, oh wait its the same body as the first…Insanity. Score one for Engadget and another for social media for spreading this post.

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I came across this article in Print Magazine and thought it was pretty interesting when you think about the design elements. Basically Print asked four design firms to come up with the design for packaging and branding a pack of dubes. Besides the fact that it is a cool idea in general, when you actually step back and think about it, this is uncharted territory. Nobody has ever really tried to brand Marijuana and so these guys were playing in a completely new ballpark. Of course you can go to Amsterdam where coffee shops have different names for their marijuana but even there almost nobody advertises and the closest you get to branding is the coffee shops themselves becoming chain-like. Therefore, it was interesting to me to see four graphic design firms get a chance at “building a better baggie.”

The four firms chosen for this little task were – Lust, a graphic design practice in Amsterdam established by Thomas Castro, Jeroen Barendse, and Dimitri Nieuwenhuizen; the New York office of Base, which worked with its branches in Europe; the Oslo firm Strømme Throndsen, winner of the 2009 Award for Design Excellence for its flour packaging; and The Heads of State, a two-man operation run by Jason Kernevich and Dustin Summers in Philadelphia.  The brief was simple: What would a legal pack of marijuana cigarettes look like?

So here they are, let me know what you think. Personally if I was walking by the Heads of State would win. Base looks like something I could get today and put a sticker on, the one by Stromme I think is cool but it looks a bit too much like the packaging for an energy powder (or crack) to me. The one by Lust, well I guess it’s good to know what you’re inhaling.

As always, I am interested in your comments and please RT this if you’re on Twitter.

Base - Click To View

HoS - Click To View

Strø - Click To View

Lust - Click To View

USA Today recently reported that the NBA and NHL were both looking into allowing some form of advertisement directly on game (practice) uniforms – see below the post for examples and the various league’s stances

Although this practice has been around for many years in European sports and many sports purists will make their argument from a sports perspective, I thought I would try to give a more economic look at the same issue. I think the thinking behind advertisements on jerseys as a revenue generator is pretty straightforward but I really think that by not having a league-wide policy or making this a league-wide initiative there is a major potential pitfall with respect to corporate naming rights and conflicting jersey advertisements  for all the major sports. Please allow me to explain…

Naming Rights & Brands Collide

The idea of putting your corporate name on the outside of a stadium or theatre is not new, but the money that has been spent on these naming deals over the past decade is staggering.  I believe that a significant amount of the money currently being spent to purchase the naming rights (see ESPN’s list of naming right deals) will either be cannibalized by this way of affiliating with sports or that more likely the owners of the naming rights will want to start imposing restrictions on who can or cannot be a jersey advertiser. Let’s take that last point a little bit further.

I do not want to debate the branding merits of attaching a corporation’s (or product’s) name to a building that most people will associate with the team(s) that play in. However what I do want to point out is that a major problem is brewing if leagues start allowing advertising on jerseys and those advertisements start to become a part of the way people recognize that team. Then you are faced with a situation where a company has poured millions of dollars into an affiliation that they really thought would be with the team that played in their stadium only to now really only have the affiliation with the stadium. No company really cares about people driving by the stadium who take note of their brand name. They care about the millions of people who come in person or watch on television and hear their brand name repeated over and over againg in the same breath as the team name. Just think about every sports broadcast and the opening that goes roughly “live from Company Name Field, today’s game features the Insert Team against the Insert Team.” Now fast forward a few years when teams have been wearing advertisements on their jerseys for a few years and people start to recognize a team’s jersey based partly on the branding on it (are Air Emirates and Arsenal Football (see jersey here) not intrinsically linked?) and tell me that problems will not arise if the stadium naming rights owner does not purchase the jersey advertising space. Do you think Coca-Cola wants to see the Houston Astros running out onto the field at  Minute Maid Park (naming rights that cost $6 million a year and $170 million over the life of the deal) with Tropicana advertisements on the jersey? What happens when Coca-Cola  says to the Denver Nuggets that they are willing to pay Carmelo Anthony’s entire contract (over $15 million a season based on 2009) for the right to brand their jerseys? Will that mean Melo suits up sporting a Coke Zero patch while running out the tunnel in the Pepsi  (a name that cost over $3.4 million a year) Center?

Even if teams are going to give current naming rights owners the first opportunity to advertise on jerseys there is a potential major issue on the horizon and not having a concrete league-wide (see below) policy is going to come back to bite one of the majors (NFL, NHL or NBA) right in the arse.

Of course while this purely a revenue play and I’ve tried to look at it as such there are still times where a sports league needs to think about its fan base rather than its corporate customers and need for a boost to the bottom line so I’ll conclude this way – I get that sports teams and leagues are looking for revenue. I get that as a sports team owner you need to constantly be looking for revenue sources and ways to generate the humongous payrolls that star players demand. I get that iff you are an athlete you are already throwing on a jersey where you generally care more about the name on the back (your own) than the team name on the front (Hockey Canada excluded) and as such what do you care if there is advertising patched on your shoulder. Most star athletes already have endorsement deals and so the fact that their employer signs a few shouldn’t bother them…BUT if you are a fan and purist you certainly won’t love the idea of jersey’s being covered in advertising and (at least IMO) may feel that the leagues are really doing themselves a disservice by cheapening their sport with gimmicks that do nothing to improve the game or the fan experience.

Bottom line is that whether advertisements and naming rights collide or fans are just turned off there is potential for a major pitfall here and the revenue earned from additional advertising might be wiped out in the lessening of naming right values and a decrease viewership and replica jersey sales.

As always I would love your comments and feedback…Retweets are greatly appreciated

The NBA & Advertising on Jerseys

Beginning this season the NBA will let teams sell ads on their practice jerseys, says deputy commissioner Adam Silver, who adds the league is continuing to explore the issue of ads on game jerseys. “We are operating a diverse business all around the world,” Silver says. “(The sponsored game jersey) is a well-established practice in other countries. Ultimately, I think our fans will come to accept it.” WNBA teams were allowed to sell ads on game jerseys this season and two teams took advantage. The WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury and Los Angeles Sparks featured LifeLock and Farmer’s Insurance, respectively, prominently featured on the front.

The NHL & Advertising on Jerseys

The NHL which pushed the envelope 30 years ago by allowing teams to sell advertising on the boards — is going high-tech to attract corporate dollars by offering marketers the chance to insert so-called “virtual” ads inside national game telecasts on NBC and Versus. These computer-generated signs, typically superimposed on the crowd, are only visible to TV viewers. and not to fans at the game.

“As with anything new, you weigh tradition with the commercialization of sports,” NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly says. “Obviously, sports are becoming more commercialized each and every year. We have that debate internally all the time. Where do you draw the line? How much is too much? You have to protect the look and feel of the game. You look at professional hockey played in Europe and there’s advertising on jerseys and on the ice. You can have so much advertising on the ice that it can be distracting to players. There’s a balance there.”

The NFL & Advertising on Jerseys

The Tennessee Titans have had a small patch for a local hospital on their practice jerseys since relocating from Houston more than a decade ago, and the league put rules in place last spring to permit the activity league-wide. Five teams — the New York Jets, New York Giants, Indianapolis Colts, St. Louis Rams and Chicago Bears — have taken advantage, NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy says. The Jets will get more than $2 million a year from a deal with Atlantic Health that includes practice uniform patches and its name on the team’s training facility, says Matthew Higgins, the team’s executive vice president of business operations.

MLB & Advertising on Jerseys

Major League Baseball has no plans to add such advertising, says MLB president Bob DuPuy.

I came across this article in the New York Times almost a month ago and have been meaning to blog about it ever since. For those not familiar, a brief synopsis of the storyline at play.

For the past several years people in countries around the world have begun to purchase bottled water in astronomical numbers. According to some research 12,000,000,000 (12 Billion – that’s 9 zeros) gallons of water were sold in 16 Western European countries in 2007. For the North Americans in the audience your fact is that between 1997 and 2007 per capita consumption of bottled water more than doubled to 29 gallons.

As we have seen in most if not all of these countries, the environmental and economic impact of these empty water bottles is a huge headache for municipalities.  Now put yourself in the shoes of the Mayor of Venice. Beautiful Venice has no roads so trash must be collected on foot and while plastic bottles can be recycled, the process is not exactly perfected. Trash collection on the mainland in Italy costs $84 per ton. Collection in Venice where it is collected by men with wheelbarrows along the canals costs $335 per ton.

So what has the city of Venice done? Did it ban plastic bottles or start charging a premium (see Toronto’s policy of charging 5 cents for platic bags) to those who use them? Nope, the city went in a completely novel direction and decided to brand their tap water. For years many people have claimed that bottled water was marketing and hype at its greatest or ugliest point in that you were paying 12 cents for the water and another buck fifty for the name on the label. So putting that theory to the test officials in Venice decided to meet bottled water’s branding with some of their own and renamed Venice’s tap water “Acqua Veritas.”

Ok so you are thinking, “who cares if they rename tap water, that’s not branding” which would be true, but the Venetians understood your skepticism and backed up the name change with a slick logo and a billboard ad campaign that included local politicians. Even taking a page from comedy 101 which teaches you to poke fun at yourself, the advertising campaign plays on the fact that tap water is often referred to as “the mayor’s water” and has used this as a slogan where prominent Venice personalities are pictured with a glass of Acqua Veritas and the phrase “I, too, drink the mayor’s water.”

I decided to highlight this campaign not only because of its novel nature, but also to remind that there are often times where a brand (in this case any bottled water) has taken control of an industry and most would write off other brands (in this case tap water) where the other brands are not dead, they just need to reinvent themselves or reeducate the public. In the case of Venice’s tap water they have done both and to some early success.As Silvia Vatta a 25 year old student noted, “we used to use bottled water because we grew up with it at home and didn’t know any better.” Now Ms. Vatta is a regular Acqua Veritas drinker and the number of Venetians who drink tap water has risen 7 percentage points over a two year span.

My point to this post is that while we might see some companies as industry leaders who cannot be unseated, it is only that way because we let our perception become reality and don’t think we can change the “staus quo.”  What we seem to forget is that the status quo today was probably not the status quo five years ago and something worked to change it. Whether it is a marketing effort or collective social conscence (e.g. going green being top of mind today when just 5 years ago it was for “tree huggers”) that moves that status quo my point is that it can and does move.  Think about your own industry or even walk into your local grocery store and scan the drinks shelves. Ten years ago we had Gatorade but little else that would be considered a specialty drink. Now I step out at lunch and see people chugging everything from “Viatamin Water” to “Viatmin Enriched Coke” – So kudos to Venice for a well thought out and well executed campaign, now if they would only fly me down to do a taste test.

As always your thoughts, comments and feedback are appreciated.

In law there is a philosophy that you are never supposed to ask a question of a witness without knowing exactly what their response will be. I mean you don’t want to give them any room to hurt your case by opening the door to an answer you did not want. So this week when I got sent the following image depicting a BMW response to an Audi advertisement I couldn’t help but think the same philosophy seems like a pretty good attitude to take in marketing as well.

Let’s take a minute to think about the Audi advertisement – they obviously were taking a shot at their rivals at BMW but I am quite certain nobody involved in planning this billboard expected BMW to hit back with such an amazing response. So the question then becomes should they have had the foresight and even if they did not how can Audi now respond when they have so clearly been “pwned” by BMW?

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On the foresight question, I guess you could easily argue that whenever you attack a competitor directly (and go so far as to mention their name in your ad) you are not only inviting a response but actually baiting the competitor. So to say that Audi should have been surprised by the fact that BMW responded would be a mistake, it’s just that I don’t think they expected BMW to be as clever as they were.

So now say you’re an Audi executive or on the marketing team that decided to put up the Audi billboard in the first place, since you have clearly been schooled by the marketers at BMW what to do? Doing nothing only reiterates the fact that BMW has won this round. Taking down the Audi billboard (so the BMW one is left with no context) would just invite BMW to purchase the now Audi space and use it to give context to their “Checkmate” billboard.

So clearly there is a need to do something but what?

I think if I was placed in the situation of Audi I would admit my loss on this one and immediately replace the current billboard with something that made reference to the fact that BMW must have a complex to need to buy such a big billboard – maybe I would reference that Audi is subtle luxury while BMW feels the need to be in your face. Or maybe I would have learned my lesson and decide that rather than attack a competitor I should just come up with something creative about my own brand. Regardless I wouldn’t allow BMW to own me on that street for longer than it took to write this post.

If you were in this situation, what would your response be?