I am amazed by the ignorance of some people about the power of a successful marketing campaign. I here so many Realtor's say that only two things make a difference in the successful sale of a home; location and price.
We can't typically change a location of many things, so let's look at price. To help illustrate the power and impact of marketing, think about what the Madison Avenue Marketing people have done "Creating" a marketing campaign behind various "holidays". For example, people typically only eat a given amount of candy in a day/week/month. However, think about consumption (not price) during:
- Easter - do you buy any "extra" candy thanks to or because of the "Easter Bunny"?
- Halloween - Do you buy any "extra" candy for this?
If the price of candy didn't change and yet more candy was sold, there must be something else. That would be a successful marketing campaign.
Think of the Christmas season for example. Have you noticed that the Christmas lights and toys start appearing even before Thanksgiving has ended? If it didn't work effectively, why would their advertising budgets and "season" keep getting extended?
Did you know that Rudolph the red nosed reindeer was such a promotional gimmick? Robert May created this character for the Montgomery Ward department store chain. They "created" their own best seller by giving away 2.4 million copies of the Rudolph coloring book in 1939. The marketing impact was so large and demand for Rudolph character so popular that they began "licensing" it.
His brother in law, Johnny Marks, wrote the musical version. Even back then, people were afraid to take on the legend of Santa Claus and turned down producing it. Gene Autry recorded it in 1948 and 2 million copies were sold that year and has become one of the best selling songs of all time!
My father, Oscar Paulson and his partner John Zumstein actually imported Reindeer from Alaska back in the 1950's. Here is a cool article in Sports Illustrated from December 12, 1966. My dad was in Vietnam at the time so he wasn't interviewed for the article. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1079400/1/index.htm
Also, here is a link to CardCow.com that has a photo of a team of reindeer and Santa out front of the ranch. I just ran across it today so have asked permission to use their photo. Since I don't have it yet, here is a link: http://www.cardcow.com/192190/operation-santa-claus-reindeer-ranch-redmond-oregon/
As you think about updating your marking plan in 2011, you might think about letting Rudolph guide you since his nose did in fact turn out to be pretty bright!
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