The Terry Tate Chronicles….

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I have a very good friend who is a former marketing exec. at Reebok.

When we last chatted, I asked, "When are they going to bring back Terry Tate?"

Surprisingly, the answer was "Never."

What many don't know is that while Terry Tate created a tremendous amount of buzz for Reebok, he did very little to improve the bottom line. And face it, despite Reebok's size, and success, they are in business to make money.

We're going to see if we can figure out why this incredibly popular and entertaining campaign was simply a flash in the pan.

The Terry Tate - Office Linebacker was a series of short comedy TV commercials created by Rawson Marshall Thurber, for Reebok, based on a short film pilot he created in 2000.  Tate was first shown at Super Bowl XXXVII.  An entertainment company bought the rights to the character and pitched it to Reebok's ad agency and they built a great campaign around the character.

The Tate films were so well received and fun, that Reebok decided to buy super bowl ad space, build a website around him, have him run for Governor of California, and make a ton of PR appearances, etc.

Ok, so what happened with Terry Tate. Its like having a tremendous amount of traffic to a website and never monetizing it.

Here's the catch. Ads work from a branding perspective, but what I'm starting to notice is that the social networking/viral marketing/call to action that direct sellers have used for years (most start-ups and small businesses use direct sales or guerilla marketing, because they don't have deep pockets) is becoming far more effective than conventional adverisement.

Reason: Consumer Information Overload.

The consumer is inundated with messages, but if a company can leverage his "brands" on the social marketing scene or marketing buzz, I predict this will be the future to increased revenues.

Example: Terry Tate gained a tremendous amount of "buzz" but didn't improve sales….

There was no call to action. The Terry series were brilliant from a branding perspective but what was he advertising? Where was the call to action. Where was the link from Terry to the direct benefit of the consumer. Put another way, Terry's value to the consumer was a bunch of very, very hilarious and entertaining videos, sponsored by Reebok,… not looking cool in my reebok shoes or running faster or jumping higher, which is Reebok's bottom line.

Reebok must've spent millions on the terry series (and I love them) but where was the product launch? What was he promoting/sales?

Now, that's the problem Here is the solution….(and there ALWAYS is a solution to every problem)

How cool would it be to have the official terry Tate blog with updated podcasting, links right to the official reebok store and links to retail outlets throughout the world. That way like a faucet, you can control your own sales by leveraging your product launches right from your "avatar"/branding"

So, in summary, you create a brand.

Let that brand become a living, breathing avatar…couple that avatar with a call to action…..buy this new shoe that has the cool, new widget that will make you run faster, jump higher, whatever..the point is what direct marketers do so well is give the benefit to the client up front. 

One of the problems with large corporations. is their thinking.  Because they often have deep pockets, they can spend millions on conventional advertising. This often leads to "reckless advertising."