Microsite.com

The sweepstakes. Ah, yes, that ultimate fallback marketing concept. I guess when you have nothing to differentiate your product or service, run a sweepstakes.

To anyone who wonders why a company should maintain an official – or even unofficial -- blog, I present the NetFlix Blog as exhibit A.

Last Monday (remember, I don’t try to report the news, just the why-it-matters part), NetFlix experienced a major disruption, affecting its distribution and shipping centers, that prevented it from shipping all its DVDs orders for the next three days.

Before the Olympics began, I was curious which Big Brands would capitalize on the world’s largest social media event by using, of course, social media and other Web 2.0 tools.

McDonald’s, Coke, Lenovo, Johnson & Johnson, and Samsung all issued press releases proclaiming their Web 2.0 cred. And, I figured, after each coughed up an average of $72 million just to be “worldwide Olympic partners” and for the right to use the five-ring logo, they would each ratcheted up their web spending and produced gold-medal online efforts.

What a difference a year makes.

In March 2007, Saatchi & Saatchi, New York, unveiled its first campaign called “Lovemarks” for its new client JC Penney. The TV spots projected a powerful, emotional imagery of the retailer. Even though I have no idea how the ads related to any selling proposition, they were creatively brilliant.

I would like to apologize to Eric and Allyson, the spokespersons for the Budget Rental Car “Flip for Budget” contest, featured on the flipforbudget.com Microsite.

I have to admit I completely missed your tongue-in-cheek charm and the Microsite's kitschy design for what it really is.

Not that there weren’t obvious signs. Really bad clip art and phrases like “Wow! What a contest!” and “Thank you. You are the best!!!”? (That’s three exclamation points, people!.)

The next time anyone asks why build a Microsite, how does a Microsite work, how can you create content that attracts visitors and generates word of mouth, or why not just put it on the corporate website, point to www.willitblend.com.

This is Microsite perfection.

In yesterday’s post I expressed my disappointment in Chevy’s “Car Wash” Microsite because it’s basically the same thing OfficeMax did on its “ElfYourself” Microsite two months ago. The moral of the story is that if you want to gain online traction, you should have content that’s exclusive, novel and have a certain edge. Even tweaks on someone else’s novel idea can catapult an effort to mass-appeal nirvana – hell, it worked for Shakespeare and Walt Disney.

Before getting into the most unsightly yet hottest trend in Microsite content today, let’s review two relevant events from the past:

This past holiday season, you probably received an email from a co-worker who had “elfed” himself. I think we all did. In fact, I think every single breathing individual in the continental United States received a freakin’ email that linked him to the www.elfyourself.com Microsite for OfficeMax. Once at the site, we were treated to a co-worker’s head superimposed on an elf, doing, among other dances, the Maccerena. Good Lord, this was disturbing, but that’s besides the point. This thing went über-viral.

In 2006, Cadillac hired a new global marketing director, Liz Vanzura. She promptly fired its long-time ad agency, Leo Burnett, and handed the $200 million business to Modernista – the agency that handles Hummer and has a history of producing killer car spots. The new team quickly updated the marketing strategy and produced killer ads.

They also launched a Microsite at www.mycadillacstory.com, and created a home on YouTube, encouraging enthusiasts to tell their own Cadillac stories.