"No one ever got fired for buying IBM."
Sometimes the best marketing isn’t the marketing thought up within a company but outside of it.
And, I’m not talking some fancy-schmancy nose-in-the-air advertising agency, either.
I’m talking customers.
One of the greatest marketing mantras of all time was (and still is) IBM’s…
“No one ever got fired for buying IBM.”
Surely you’ve heard it.
Surprisingly, it was never the company’s official tagline.
It was thought up by someone in corporate America cleverly commentating on the danger to one’s job when selecting pricey software that… didn’t quite pan out.
Lucky dogs.
What tremendous luck for IBM?
As the mantra caught fire, IBM became the “safe choice” among corporate America, the go-to for middle managers not wanting to risk it all on some upstart’s unproven software.
Bud Light is another refreshing example.
During Game 5 of last year’s world series, Astro’s power-hitter Yordan Alvarez smacked a missile that went blazing into the stands, heading straight for a National’s Fan named Jeff Adams.
The unsuspecting Adams was double-fisting two fat cans of Bud Light and was suddenly faced with a tough decision…
Drops the beers and catch the baseball or take the baseball right to the chest…
He took the baseball to the chest.
Bud Light jumped on the live footage Hunter S. Thompson style, like a pack of speed-crazed wolverines.
Their marketing team reached out to Adams personally and put together a commercial for them.
Once it was all said and done, they estimated that Adam’s moment of inebriated valor earned them a cool $8 million in free marketing and PR.
So, with all that being said…
Keep an ear to the ground.
Your customers are saying things (and doing things) that can either…
- Massively improve your product or service.
- Market the hell out of it.
When it comes directly from the horse’s mouth, it’s not just true… it can be used to find other horses.
But, I digress.
By Cole Schafer.
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