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  Tshirt Hell pwn everyone. A great marketing ploy that worked.

  Stii 11:50 pm on February 17, 2009 | Comments: 3 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: marketing, techcrunch, tshirt hell, Tshirts (2)

  Tshirt Hell is not for the sensitive! Be warned.

  

  In January, Tshirt Hell announced that it was closing it’s doors after one too many hate mail. Sunshine Megatron said he has had enough of it. The announcement went as far as Techcrunch announcing the closure. Quite frankly, it was pretty believable if you look at some of their shirts:

  “Arrest Black Babies Before They Become Criminals”
  “Arrest White Babies Before They Become Child Molesting, Serial Killing, Whale Watching, Corporate Thugs”
  “Slavery gets shit done”

  Tonight, they announced:

  “T-Shirt Hell going out of business? Really? Because of some hate mail? Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “Do you really think I would hang it all up because of hate mail? Give me a break…the site is called T-Shirt Hell.”

  Brilliant ploy. They ran a close out sale for a couple of weeks due to this news.

  Here is the result:

  “We were never…ever…leaving in the first place. Let’s just call it tough love. Sometimes you need to kick your loved ones in the assholes to get them to satisfy their need for awesome t-shirts (and to fill my bank account). I know a lot of our fans are stingy motherfuckers and need to be “inspired” to get off their fat asses to spend money in ways that truly enhance lives and bring joy to the world. Well, that’s what I did.”

  “In 3 weeks, I’ve done EXACTLY what is needed to stimulate any economy..and that is to get people to open their wallets. Not only did the last 3 weeks save jobs at T-Shirt Hell, they’ve opened up a whole new world to the people who had never bought our shirts until now.”

  Now before you go and announce you’re closing down and are having a closing sale, I suggest you re-think. It worked for Tshirt Hell since, well, its Tshirt Hell! It is not going to work for everyone.

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• 

  The Digital Edge podcast

  Stii 1:48 pm on January 12, 2009 | Comments: 6 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: digitaledge (2), marketing, podcast (2), technology (3)

  Well done to Saul Kropman and Jarred Cinman for starting this podcast series called The Digital Edge. As they said in the introduction that its not going to be a beer drinking and iPhone drooling podcast. They feel like they will be filling a need/niche which is pretty much a void space in the South African online scene. They are spot on. We need this!

  About 2 years ago Dave Duarte and Mike Stopforth had a similar initiative called Amplitude which took off great, but then suddenly died down. Methinks it is harder work than one anticipate… This left us with a need. The ZA Tech show is probably the most popular (if not only) SA technology podcast, but their discussions cover quite a wide range of topics and to be brutally honest, the podcast is simply to long to listen. They’re all round about an hour long last time I’ve listened. I simply cannot sit still for that long period of time!

  The Digital Edge sounds professional. It is short and to the point. It has some great topics and even greater guests. Episode one features the brilliant Andy Hadfield from First National Bank. Boys, all I can say is well done and good luck. Please don’t let this one also whither away into digital oblivion. You’ve started it, so PLEASE keep it up and going!

  Listen to Episode one over here.
  
   
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  The big Social Media failure?

  Stii 3:24 pm on November 26, 2008 | Comments: 24 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: marketing, socialmedia (7)

  Just read Mango-OMC’s press release called Social Media – the power and the pain. Now, I see Gerhard “Jail4Bail” Pieterse says he distances himself from it, although I think it might be out of loyalty rather than denial. I mean, how do you tell people that supported you so vocally that they FAIL? I can understand that, but lets consider the cold hard facts and figures. Traditional media (sadly, I might add) kicked online’s butt! As Jason stated:

  That’s a joke right? I actually can’t believe that only 0.32% of all the money raised came from online.

  Now, I know Catherine, so I don’t doubt for one second that the figures are accurate. I do think that maybe one could have looked at a different channel to obtain revenue apart from ONLY looking at an SMS strategy, but doubt that it would have made a huge difference. Look at blogger bake-off which only raised US$2899 thus far, although I think if everyone answered the call, which we tried, it might have been higher… Nevertheless, online is not a good option for fund raising by the looks of it.

  There might be a number of reasons for it and I wouldn’t like to even start speculating.

  I do think that it did not fail completely. It succeeded on a different level, adding a completely different kind of value. I think people should stop looking at Social Media as a silver bullet and they should sure as hell stop advocating that it is. On WebSuccessDiva’s blog (Social Media Marketing is not a One-Size-Fits-All Solution for Online Marketing) she says:

  Not all audiences are accessible through social media marketing channels.

  True words that! I personally think the expectations for Social Media and Jail4Bail was all crooked and wrong. I almost got a feeling that it was used as a race. “We, Social Media, are going to kick Traditional Media’s ASS!”. At least, that is how it came across most of the time.

  I stick to my guns. Yes, it works and works well if applied for the right reasons and with the correct goal in mind. It could work even better if that “I’m more hip than you and therefore more superior” attitude gets dropped and by embracing Traditional Media to compliment it. It should be a package deal (As noted by Nicole Capper, i think?). As long as Traditional Media people see Social Media as a threat or Social Media laughs at Traditional Media while chanting “Your medium is dying!”, we’re shooting ourselves and our clients in the foot. Ten fold over.

  See Social Media for what it is. A means of communicating and creating awareness. Not a means for fund raising. We experimented, failed and learned. Next time, we’ll do it better!