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Small-Town Museums Are Killing It Online; Telcos’ Publicity War Gets Even Uglier; The Cult of Kohl’s Cash
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Welcome back. Today, museum social-media managers meet people where they are (TikTok); the first casualty of wireless wars is trust; and loyal shoppers return the hug at Kohl’s.
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Fenimore Art Museum says TikTok has helped expand its fan base well beyond the number of people who could reasonably buy tickets—and that's OK. Fenimore Art Museum
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Museums are turning their paintings, sculptures and tapestries into TikTok stars to attract or educate the masses, The WSJ Leadership Institute’s Patrick Coffee reports.
“I love her, but she’s an attention whore,” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow whispers to his daughter, for example, in the Worcester Art Museum’s post about an 1869 portrait.
Longfellow, who knows his memes for a 19th-century poet, is of course reproducing dialogue from the Hulu show “Pen15.”
Do any critics think this is lowbrow? Yes! Such posts are “dumbing it down for the purpose of attendance,” said Alan Harrison, an author who advises nonprofit arts institutions.
But the museums hugely prefer it to obscurity. “I want to make people laugh, and I want to make them interested in, in this case, 19th-century art,” says Kelli Huggins, who manages social media for Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y.
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Content from our sponsor: Deloitte
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With Brand Refresh, USAA Draws on a Century of Shared Experiences
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For interim CMO Lindsey O’Neill, both facts and feelings were critical to shaping USAA’s refreshed brand, which launches with a campaign focused on the individual experiences of military families. Read More
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AT&T has made the telcos’ frequent challenges against each other's ad claims into an ad claim of its own. AT&T
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Cellphone carriers somehow escalated their cutthroat competition, but is all this good marketing?
T-Mobile’s “Easy Switch” program since last month has asked AT&T and Verizon customers to hand over their logins and passwords so it can check their rates and make competing offers, Patience Haggin writes.
It’s not quite in the spirit of “Never share your password with someone else” or “We will never ask for your password.” Your password with our competitor is a different story, perhaps.
But the idea is completely in line with telcos’ long history of undermining each other, squabbling over claims from “More Bars in More Places” to “America’s Most Reliable Wireless Network” and iconography from 3G coverage maps to “5G E.”
AT&T in October made such spats into an on-screen issue, depicting a faux newspaper headline “T-Mobile Most Challenged for Deceptive Ads.”
The attacks might be mutually assured destruction for trust and loyalty.
Customers are switching carriers more often.
“In the end, the carrier that wins won’t be the one with the loudest ad,” George Heudorfer, practitioner in residence at the University of New Haven’s Pompea College of Business, told Patience. “It’ll be the one that makes wireless feel simple, fair and trustworthy.”
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“We’ve seen this movie before,
and we know how it ends.”
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— Michele Mulroney, president of the Writers Guild of America West, on Warner Bros.’ sale to either Netflix or Paramount. Creative workers in Hollywood worry that consolidating companies will undermine output too.
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Money Can Buy Me Positive Brand Perception
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Kohl’s shopper Isabella Rossi says being able to fund most or all of a purchase with Kohl’s Cash is an adrenaline rush. Isabella Rossi
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Kohl’s has gotten a lot wrong in the past year, but nobody seems to have a problem with its program for rewarding loyal shoppers, The Journal’s Suzanne Kapner reports. For every $50 they spend on qualifying purchases, they earn $10 in Kohl’s Cash, which is just as good as real money as long as they use it on specified dates.
Suzanne writes:
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Kohl’s Cash is fast becoming part of popular culture, much the way Bed Bath & Beyond’s “Big Blue” oversize 20% off coupons were a touchstone before the retailer filed for bankruptcy.
In a video that went viral, NFL quarterback Kirk Cousins appeared on ESPN and showed off a necklace the retailer made for him that looks like a Kohl’s Cash coupon.
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The risk is that shoppers get so hooked on the coupons that they don’t spend without them, but Kohl’s doesn’t seem worried. It says it more than makes up for the cost of the giveaways by incentivizing future purchases.
Embracing loyal customers is also marketing in its own right:
Kohl’s new CEO Michael Bender told analysts last month that the company’s rewards program helps drive repeat trips—and positive brand perception.
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New products Costco introduced before the holiday season under its Kirkland Signature house brand. Rising costs and competition are pushing warehouse clubs like Costco and BJ’s to lean on their store brands to reinforce their value proposition.
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50 Cent executive-produced ‘Sean Combs: The Reckoning,’ a four-part Netflix documentary about his longtime rival in the hip-hop world. Getty
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How 50 Cent’s feud with Diddy fueled the No. 1 show on Netflix. [WSJ]
Top advertisers appeared to be wary of CBS News’s debut “town hall” with Bari Weiss. [Variety]
Pantone’s choice of “Cloud Dancer” white for its color of the year promotion is triggering more criticism than usual. [Fashion United]
Bleacher Report’s Creator League, where social-media stars compete in sports from flag football to dodgeball, is winning over more young viewers (and sponsors). [Fast Company]
Reddit is taking the Australian government to court to block its social-media ban for children under the age of 16. [WSJ]
Lagunitas named Otherway its first creative agency of record as the brewer prepares to boost marketing after a quiet couple of years. [Ad Age]
A “100% AI” videogame might just be in it for the rage. [Creative Bloq]
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