By Jim McCarthy Feb 19, 2009 3 comments

Trevor O’Donnell Drops by to Talk Live 2.0

Trevor O’Donnell, who literally wrote the book on group sales, dropped by for lunch today.  He’s got a new book project in the works, which if he writes in, I’ll clue you in a bit more what it’s about.

We ate lunch at Matsuri and talked marketing.  He told a great story, which I thought he wouldn’t mind if I shared.
He was working for Disney Theatricals during the successful run of “The Lion King” here in LA.  At some point, it became clear that to keep the show healthy in the market, they needed to make sure they were reaching some new segments.

One of the things they decided was that they would do some advertising on the “Spanglish” radio stations in LA, which focus on the Hispanic market.  Pretty straightforward as far as that goes, and the plan was to get the on-air personalities to cut little spots talking about the show.

But then they did three very smart things:

1.  They framed it as a family story.  It’s a father and a son and the inherent drama of generational legacy, which according to their advertising partners at the radio station were themes that the audience would respond to.  (I guess thing 1A. would be they asked the radio station folks what they should be saying, since they obviously knew the audience better than Disney Theatricals.)

2.  They brought all the on-air personalities to the show.  Comps of course.

3.  They had them cut the spots the very next morning AND they let them say whatever they wanted.  The enthusiasm just poured out, apparently and it became something that was truly meaningful to the audience.

Trevor says “sales took off.”

While I’m not sure this exact thing would even work today, it is so chock-full of lessons for how to think about marketing that I don’t even know where to start.

There’s a humility and confidence implied by what they did that’s actually kind of inspiring.  Can you imagine Disney letting these local DJs say whatever they wanted?  It’s a bit of a scary leap, but if Disney can do it, maybe it’s right for you to do it too.

A couple years ago, we made the decision here at Goldstar to have real-time, unedited feedback from users on the events on our site.  Some people fretted that too many ugly warts would be exposed and all our venue partners would suffer.  It never happened.  Our members were just happier and bought more shows.

Also, bringing the on-air personalities into the process, really recruting them as converts to what the show was all about instead of just settling for having them as hired guns shows a lot of confidence.  It says that we believe in what we’re doing.

So take it as a free lesson in marketing from a good marketer.  I’m not sure radio is the way to go anymore, but the point is broader than that.

Do you have the humility and confidence it takes to make your outreach work?  Give it a try.

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3 Comments

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    December 6th, 2010

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    December 9th, 2010

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