FedEx is preparing a new marketing campaign that launches Tuesday against federal legislation that could help FedEx employees more easily join a union. And FedEx claims that UPS is a driving force behind the bill that changes which labor act FedEx must operate under.

The bill in question would move FedEx Express from under the Railway Labor Act and instead put it under jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Act. The Railway Labor Act was put in place to stop possible service interruptions in railway delivery of goods. It was later expanded to include airlines and that’s what FedEx started under in the 70s.

In this new multimillion-dollar campaign, FedEx will refer to the legislation as a “Brown” bailout, since unionizing could increase FedEx’s expenses and therefore giving UPS an edge in lowering the pricing gap between the two companies’ services. Right now, FedEx Express employees would have to unionize nationwide. But under the more union-friendly NLRA, FedEx employees can unionize in separate locations instead of needing a national election.

FedEx claims that FedEx Express is best classified under the RLA:

Since the company’s founding in 1971, FedEx Express has remained under the jurisdiction of the RLA. We firmly believe that is the proper classification for our company. Unlike our competition, we operate an integrated air/ground network and handle air shipments separately in that network. RLA jurisdiction gives us the best opportunity to deliver reliable, uninterrupted service to customers. It is that superior service that has allowed us to grow in spite of the best efforts of a larger, more profitable competitor — UPS. Their current lobbying campaign, working hand-in-hand with the Teamsters, is another attempt by UPS to gain a competitive advantage that they have been unable to gain through their service performance.

But because FedEx has threatened to cancel some plane purchases if the bill passes, the Teamsters feel that FedEx is trying to “blackmail Congress” to keep the bill from passing.

The marketing campaign launches Tuesday and includes a web site — BrownBailout.com — and spots on radio and television.

image: Zuma Press

Popular beef jerky brand, Jack Link’s is launching Matador–a new meat snack aimed specifically at teens with an action-driven lifestyle. According to the company, more than 41 million teens in the country spend an estimated $350 million on meat snacks each year.

Image: Newscom

“The quality of Jack Link’s products and popularity of the Jack Link’s brand continues to drive the growth in meat snacks and we look forward to bringing that same growth engine to the teen stick segment of the market,” said Jeff LeFever, director of marketing at Jack Link’s Beef Jerky. “Teens testing our new Matador snack stick have confirmed that it has just the right kick they’re looking for and our marketing plans will support the activities that are important to their action-oriented lives.”

The company will market the snacks through a comprehensive, integrated campaign with an action sports platform. They will sponsor BMX, skateboarding and snowboarding athletes, which are popular among teenagers, and partner with sporting events such as the 2009 Dew Tour and Camp Woodward action sports training camp.

The Matador snack sticks are priced at just $.99 each and are available at convenience stores across the U.S. They come in an easy-to-open package for on-the-go lifestyles. Jack Link’s will release additional products under the Matador brand later this year.

By incorporating elements from the action sports world, Jack Link’s hopes to tap into the large teen sector. If their campaign uses online components with contests, games, Facebook and MySpace applications, they could really cash in with the teenage demographic.

Jack Link’s has had success before with a microsite–Messin With Sasquatch. It features games, videos, TV commercials, desktop wallpapers and other fun aspects which incorporate their “Feed Your Wildside.” theme of their beef jerky.

Most of the time we talk about entertaining advertising campaigns here at Behind the Buzz. However, sometimes we take time out to highlight the philanthropic campaigns as well. On Monday, Feeding America, the largest hunger-relief organization in the U.S., launched their Dine-In to Fight Childhood Hunger Campaign.

Sponsored by Stouffer’s and partnered with Reader’s Digest, this campaign aims to raise awareness about domestic childhood hunger and encourages people to take action to help end hunger in America. Participants can either pledge to host a Dine-In Dinner or make an online donation to the campaign. For each pledge, Stouffer’s brand will make a $5 donation to Feeding America. Stouffer’s has committed to a minimum of $25,000 and a maximum of $50,000.

Image: FeedingAmerica.org (screenshot)

Those who pledge to host a Dine-In dinner will receive a downloadable toolkit with all the necessary information and items necessary to host such a gathering. Information about the campaign can be found on the Feeding America website, as well as in the April issue of Reader’s Digest. The campaign runs through April 30, 2009.

Additionally, Stouffer’s supports Feeding America through two other programs.

With the Stouffer’s Dinner Club, participants have the opportunity to donate their accrued points to help provide meals to Feeding America. Stouffer’s will be making a minimum donation of $50.000 through this program, up to a maximum amount of $120,000. A second program, Stouffer’s let’s fix dinner Challenge, will urge families to pledge to eat dinner together. Each registration at letsfixdinner.com will provide a pledge of $0.52 cents - or Feeding America’s cost for four meals ($0.13/meal) - to help a family in need enjoy a dinner, too.

Times are tough everywhere. For those really in need, programs like these give us an opportunity to help those less fortunate.

Zibogo.com is a national coupon website that is set to launch in June 2009. The company aims to bring together local merchants with consumers, saving business owners significant amounts in their direct marketing costs.

Zibogo.com (screenshot)

Right now, Zibogo is offering any legitimate business owner a free account for participating in pre-launch BETA Testing. If you are interested, sign up as a tester at Zibogo.com. A limited number of free accounts are available.

With everyone concerned with protecting the environment, Zibogo.com promotes “Greenconomics.”

A term coined by our people here that believe building a strong company that is financially profitable, affordable and environmentally rewarding will create a longstanding and credible brand. Zibogo.com’s plan for longevity instills the confidence that merchants appreciate and prefer to do business with. Consumers enjoy the fact knowing the site that has provided the best local deals will continue with the same reliability for many years to come.

In today’s economy, everyone is looking to save money. If businesses can reduce their marketing costs, they can pass on the savings to consumers or be able to improve their products and services.

Hi,

I’m Kori Ellis. I’m taking over the reins here at Behind the Buzz. I write several other blogs for b5media, plus I’m also the Channel Editor for the Sports, Technology and Beauty & Style channels.

Behind the Buzz covers all aspects of digital and interactive marketing and advertising. I hope to discuss a variety of topics including the following:

Establishing a web presence, including corporate websites, portal strategies, microsites and interactive web marketing.

Search marketing and search engine optimization techniques.

Outbound web marketing, including email marketing and syndication.

Branding (though you can find more terrific content about branding from Katherine Liew at Brandcurve), including developing and extending your brand through banner advertising, contextual advertising, cross-branding and affiliate marketing.

Social media marketing, including blogging, social networking, message boards, wikis, podcasts, user ratings and other aspects of social media.

Additionally, we’ll discuss online video, virtual worlds, internet TV, mobile content and much more.

We’ll take a look at the types of marketing and the ad campaigns being used by businesses, both small and large. I’ll also provide digital marketing tips, trends and strategies that may help you in marketing your own business.

I hope you check back often, comment (even if you disagree), and subscribe to our RSS feed.

Here’s to a happy and successful 2009!

- Kori

^{Photo credit: sxc.hu}

The Idea

A more serious use of online marketing and the ability to share ideas across networks. Unifem (the United Nations Development Fund for Women) are pushing a campaign to Say No to Violence against Women, using widgets to collect digital signatures which will be presented to the UN Secretary General

You add your name to the widget to sign up or you can grab your code to add to your own site. It can send code directly to Facebook, Livejournal or MySpace but unfortunately the straightforward embed does not seem to work for me, as I could not get he embed code to actually work here.

What I think

First of all, I think it strange that one UN department puts together a petition for another UN department, but it is a good way of raising awareness. The widget works although the supporting sites seemed lacking in any in-depth information and I think could have been better. It also looks like they could have done some more testing so the code would work here.

The Pitch

Generic, but not offensive.

The Idea

Sony Ericsson have launched a new phone, the c905 Cybershot whose main selling point appears to be the 8.1megapixel camera.

• there’s a YT video about the making of the big TV commercial. They’re only releasing this video online - which begs the question where else could they release it?
  
• there’s a TV commercial somewhere, but not on the same account as the makign of video, so not hunting for it
• there’s some nice images available in the press release
• There’s a website, extolling the virtues of the site.

What do I think?

There seems to be more joined up thinking needed. Why isn’t the making of video and the ad in the same place; if the phone is all about the images, where’s the Flickr account? The site is pretty, but not effective - I can’t deep link to the bits i like. Nothing special here.

The Pitch

This is the main reason I’m writing about this - the digital aspects of the marketing are OK, pretty standard but needs more. The email I received was fine, pointing me to all the assets. My problem here is with the ’social media press release’. My perception of something under that name is different from what I was presented with. Here, you have lots of assets, such as images and videos, nothing different to any usual press pack. It extends into the ’social media world’ by having lots of ways to bookmark the press release on various sites - but why would I want to do that? The press release itself is just that, a corporate, slick massaged set of words - containing 7 instances of ‘8.1 megapixel’. You can tell that it’s gone through lot’s revisions, with focus on getting the feature out there.

My feeling is that a ’social media press release’ needs to treat me as a person, not just move traditional communications onto the web. Make me feel a real person has written this, not that it’s been done by a PR professional to corporate guidelines. Don’t add the made up quotes (ok, I don’t know if the quote in it is made up, but having seen these things been written in the past, they almost always are). Treat it differently, don;t just change the channel!

The highest ranking product this week is not, at first glance, a product video. But look a little closer and you’ll find out it’s for milk, from the California Milk Processor Board

There’s nothing else on the list but this one may be on next weeks: I love the new Mac ad - Bean Counter.

The Idea

I saw lots of new ads this morning on the Tube that I was trying to work out which airline they were for - the text and font were definitely eyecatching but they were on the new digital escalator ads and I never managed to catch the brand. Bit this email from Jaz, who was working with Air New Zealand to promote their latest campaign, It’s a Kiwi Thing.

The campaign, devised by creative agency Albion, reflects the ‘kiwi can-do’ philosophy embodied by Air New Zealand’s staff, and is part of the airline’s bid to make the unique attitude famous around the world.

Amateur abseiler Captain Clulow spent four hours suspended 65 feet over one of the City of London’s busiest roads in this nail-biting stunt painting the headline. He is the latest Air New Zealand employee to help with its advertising – the campaign also features genuine cabin crew from the airline’s London crew base taking the starring role in the adverts.

They’re spending over 2 million on online, print, underground and outdoor, with the starrring role going to the largest elevation on the City of London, all freshly painted. The campaign is supposed to represent the kiwi attitude, bringing “to life the energy and attitude that sets Air New Zealand apart from the competition.”

What I think

I like the stunt, getting one of your pilots to paint your billboard is pretty good and got the PR they were after. So far I’ve only seen the digital billboards on the tube and I think they’re too busy to grasp the meaning (well, i haven’t got them yet, not been able to read them). The ideas are a lot clearer on the website, where you can also apply to be one of the new Inflight concierges (as long as you can swim 50m)

screenshot from site

The Pitch

Nicely done from Jaz, lots of information and a call out to previous blog posts.

Here’s a superb video from slateV.com demonstrating how they think guerilla marketing could turn out in the future.

The sad thing is, there have already been similar attempts to market, not quite as blatant, but definitely putting ‘actors’ out there to evangelise products without being transparent. In some countries, such as the UK, astroturfing and marketing without transparency is illegal and things have to be clear.