Timmy Hendrickson walks through core marketing rules: know your target market, keep it simple, be cool, stay relevant. He uses Red Bull, UberPool's LA launch, Snapchat billboards, Virgin America, BuzzFeed, and Pokémon Go to show how brands actually do it.
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So my marketing guidelines, I've been in the work force for 5 years now. Question? The branding wasn't always consistent. Was that more of an image thing or was that the target demographic? Target demographic. So someone who goes to a Red Bull X Fighters isn't necessarily gonna go to a Red Bull Freestyle, because they're more into motorsports rather than a DJ competition. They might not care about music, and vice versa. Yeah. So sorry, getting back. I've only been in the workforce for like 5 years. I have worked for Red Bull, Uber, now Minibar, some great companies, learned a lot of great things. And these are just like my basic guidelines to marketing. Number 1, easiest, know your target market. And that means know who you're marketing to, have data to support it. An example was when we were launching UberPool in Los Angeles. Everyone has probably taken an UberPool or at least seen it on the app out here in Silicon Valley. And the consumer's a little different up here than it is down in Los Angeles. Up here, it's more for commuters. Yeah. but down in Los Angeles. And when we originally were launching the product, they thought, okay, let's really target this consumer, these people who commute to work every day that need a cheap, reliable place, you know, or ride to wherever they're going. But Los Angeles not only is different consumer in terms of UberPool, it's just a different beast in general. So what we found out, or what we did, We did some market research, sent out an email of people who had taken UberPool, asked them their demographics, and what we found is that UberPool was more geared towards people who like to go out and they like to do events or like go out to a bar on a random Wednesday night. They don't necessarily want to pay $10 for a normal UberX. They'd rather split that cost, $5. What we did, we came up with a few marketing ideas and one of them was to get floor seats to Disclosure at Staples Center. And Disclosure, very large DJ act, producers, and people ate it up. They loved it. And the reason they ate it up is because we weren't targeting commuters. If we targeted commuters, I mean, there's some fun things we could do, partner with a coffee shop, partner with Philz, and give people free coffee. Cool. But down in Los Angeles, what they wanted was more of an experience, because that's who these people were. 2, keep it simple. And I know, like, going back to Red Bull and thinking, well, they sent someone to the stratosphere and made them jump out of a cube. It's not simple. But the idea itself is, hey, let's just send one up to space and make them jump. Like, some of the best ideas are, in theory, very simple. Another, I mean, a great example of keeping it simple is Snapchat. This is a billboard down in Los Angeles. I'm sure, like me, when you look at billboards, they're kind of just— it's a lot of static. You don't really see what's going on. You don't know what they're selling. There was one for Braintree. Has anyone heard of Braintree? Yeah. They take payments from consumers. It's owned by PayPal. But I don't even know what the billboard says. I mean, it was kind of boring. But this one, it's very simple. You know that little ghost. If you don't know that ghost, you're gonna ask someone, hey, I saw this billboard on Lincoln Boulevard in Venice, and it had this little ghost on it with yellow. What is that? Someone within your circles is gonna know. So even though billboards, for the most part, going back to that quote from Chuck Klosterman, they get sucked into a vacuum, this one kinda breaks the mold, which is great, by keeping it simple. 2, be cool. Can someone define what cool is? Just raise your hand. Me. Me, okay. What makes you cool? What makes you cool? Okay. Anybody? Being original. Who else? There's no wrong answer to this because cool, yes, it's being original, it's being Not too elitist to the point where it's exclusive, but semi-elitist. And cool is definitely different in everyone's mind. So who plays Pokémon Go? Okay, so like, is that a cool product? Oh yeah. Hell yeah. So not necessarily to me because I don't play it. I know it's sweeping the nation. But cool is subjective in terms of Everyone has their own view of it, so when you're marketing to your consumers, be cool in their mind. It wouldn't make sense for Pokémon Go to partner with, let's say, I don't know. Well, let's— sorry, it would be cool if they partnered with Mountain Dew, right? Because number one, Mountain Dew is kind of that— their target market is somewhat similar. People who like to play video games, like to go out, need caffeine. And it's very inexpensive. But for me, I think cool is Virgin America. Who's flown on Virgin America? Right? Yeah, best airline ever. So why is it— I'm just gonna keep coming back to you. Why is it the best airline? Black lights. Black lights. Super friendly. Super friendly. They're very organized. Very organized, exactly. Great food, like the games that you can play, it's just great. It's great, yeah. They've really kinda just changed the way people travel. I go down to LA maybe once every other month, 8 weeks or so, and I will always travel Virgin. And I travel for work, and sometimes, you know, the Virgin flight is more expensive than Southwest, more expensive than, let's say, Alaska. I don't care. I will pay that difference out of my own pocket just to fly Virgin. You know, they always talk about— and this is gonna be a weird example, but it really stuck out. When you go to check your bag, there's the height, weight requirements, all that stuff. We've been— I mean, we're pretty old now. I'm pretty old now. And I just get so bored of seeing the same thing. If your bag doesn't fit in this, you can't bring it on the plane. Virgin America, I couldn't find a picture of it, but Virgin America, they, in front of their gate, It has this really funny sign where it says, you know what to do, put the bag here. And it says, if it doesn't fit, give it to someone at the desk. I should have gotten— I was just flying Virgin on Friday too, and I should have taken a picture for you guys. I apologize, and I did a really bad rendition of it. But the next time you fly, check out Virgin America. They're really just changing the way people travel. Stay relevant. Obviously, that one is— these are all pretty basic, but they're good because if you don't stay relevant with your consumers, they're just gonna lose interest, right? And one of the best companies right now that's staying relevant is BuzzFeed. I don't necessarily like BuzzFeed because I don't care about the 31 cats who are having a worse Monday than me, but there are the consumers. Their consumer is someone who just needs that 5-minute break, wants to take a look at cats or fails or whatever. I know they're coming out with their own little mini cooking series. I think it's called Tasty. Don't quote me on that. Does anyone know? Yeah, those little minute-long Facebook videos. So they're staying relevant to their consumer, which is great.
