“”Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it’s okay.”

Horizon says that @abonnen had moved out recently so clearly there was something about the apartment that she did not like–possibly the mold? So instead of trying to find out what was the issue and looking for a way to resolve it, Horizon went the “legal” route: a $50,000 lawsuit for libel.

“We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization,” he said, noting that the company manages 1,500 apartments in Chicago and has a good reputation it wants to preserve.

They are going to soon be an organization with a bad reputation for using legal muscle when someone says something unpleasant about them.

I am no lawyer but, I can’t see this having legs. Things are written about people and organizations every day on the internet through blogs, Twitter updates, Facebook udpates, etc. Are we going to file lawsuits every time someone says something we don’t like?

Whatever the legality of this is, the legal system will sort it out. I can only comment with some authority on the impact this has on Horizon’s image. No one likes a bully and this is a clear case of bullying. In this brave new world where every brand or company is going to be talked about whether they like it or not, bullying is not the best way to preserve a good reputation.

For me, I will be highly unlikely to want to rent properties under Horizon as they might try to sue me if the relationship goes sour and I write about it. We are always telling others about our experiences with companies. Good or bad. So if I have a bad experience with Horizon and then tell people that I see every day and people in my social networks, am I going to be sued for libel and slander because Horizon feels it is false?

Very few people probably saw @abonnen’s tweet about Horizon. Now that they filed an outrageous sum for a tweet, many more people have discovered it. Good job! They have now helped more people associate Horizon with moldy apartments and frivolous lawsuits.

Nonetheless, the people didn’t like this and made their voice heard on Twitter. I followed the trend for a little bit that day and found that AT&T was responding to the uproar. I thought AT&T was doing a pretty good job explaining to people the pricing structure and the facts about early upgrades.

@ATTNews couldn’t make any changes to prices so they did their best job to provide information straight from the horses mouth. They also made sure to note that they were listening to what the people were saying.

Now, a few days later, AT&T informs us that they are going to offer iPhone 3G owners who have a contract expiring in July, August, or September the best upgrade price on June 18th. This is AT&T listening to its customers and responding to their concerns. I thought AT&T was doing a great job by just listening and providing clear information. Making the best upgrade price available to existing customers whose contract is almost about to end is something they didn’t need to do.

Good job AT&T! I will still have to wait until July to get my iPhone 3G S as I don’t have an iPhone 3G contract about to expire. I just assume I will able to avoid the hysteria by the time mid July rolls around.

The question a marketer would ask is: how did Cold-Eeze sell me on their product? That’s the kind of thing we like to know. I did some brief research into the marketing efforts of Cold-Eeze and the financial statements of the Quigley Company–they make Cold-Eeze–to find the answer.

Get Well Sooner Campaign

I have personally never seen an advertisement for Cold-Eeze. If I have, I certainly don’t remember it. The first time that I came into contact with Cold-Eeze was at Duane Reade and their packaging touted the product’s ability to cut the length of the common cold. Who doesn’t want a cold to go away faster?! It was also the most expensive product of its kind but, I bought it anyway–I actually didn’t buy it the first time around because of the price.

Cold-Eeze has employed some advertising–I was able to locate some ads and the Get Well Sooner campaign by Merkley + Partners. The campaign was estimated to cost between $6 – $10 million. Based on the Merkley + Partners website, their Cold-Eeze work consisted of print, TV, and interactive. However, the web is most amazed with the billboards that Merkley + Partners are noted to be responsible for but, they do not take claim to it on their website.

There are other forms of print ads and commercial storyboards that I came across but, they don’t really tie to any agency or campaign. It could possibly be work that was never used. The print and TV ads for Get Well Sooner can be viewed on agency’s website–their site is in flash so I can’t directly link to the specific sections.

The interactive part of the campaign consisted of a website and some banner ads. The website is still live on a different address. It isn’t a specific online campaign or landing page. I used the Internet Archive Wayback Machine and found out that the website was the official Cold-Eeze website for a couple of years. The current website is different.

Some of the features from the old website is on the new website and on Quigley’s ColdFight360 website. Reusing parts and pieces certainly makes sense!

Going Interactive

I don’t want to jump the gun and say that Cold-Eeze is moving towards more interactive marketing and less traditional advertising but, I have not found any traditional advertising besides the Get Well Sooner campaign of 2005-2006. I also can’t find any information on how well the campaign did.

Financial statements show that Quigley has been increasingly losing money since 2006. They have cash reserves of about $12 million and no long term debt. They look pretty good financially as long as they can eventually return to making a profit.

With the economy is in this battered state, it makes a lot of sense to shift marketing dollars to cheaper interactive vehicles. The Cold-Eeze website has a prominent link to their Facebook Fan Page. They only have 150 fans and limited communication on its wall–it would probably be beneficial to engage the fans in a conversation.

I don’t see Cold-Eeze talking with the fans, they are just pushing announcements. That isn’t a very effective way to operate a social media effort. There is some live chatter about Cold-Eeze on Twitter. They are not active on Twitter even thought it appears that they could be. People mention Cold-Eeze when talking about being sick and colds happen to catch people all year round.

Their current social media efforts appear to focus around Facebook. Social media is all very new so I assume they are taking it one step at a time! Still, Cold-Eeze can improve their use of Facebook, I would recommend looking at Skittles. Skittles does a good job on Facebook. They talk about more than just their products!

The Website

I like the Cold-Eeze website. They have a pharmacist on-hand who can answer questions people submit. They provide information on how Cold-Eeze works and even has case studies in PDF format. The are reinforcing their unique selling advantage. If you don’t believe that Cold-Eeze is the only product proven to cut the length of the common cold, they have case studies to prove it!

If the case studies can’t convince you to give it a try, there is an online coupon to push you over the edge. Once you’ve tried it, Cold-Eeze gives you the tools to share with friends and family. I think this is fantastic. I enjoy sharing Cold-Eeze with friends so making it easy to do can only help spread the word.

Cold-Eeze wants you to talk about them when you get sick or your friends get sick. They even provide you the coupon to send to your friends. This helps make the sender feel important by allowing them to almost give a gift to a friend. Unfortunately, I tried to sign-up for the coupon and it didn’t work. Might be a technical error but, the link to print tells you that no materials related to this campaign exists.

They also allow you to send a Get Well Sooner e-card to friends using Hallmark’s e-card service. I thought that was a pretty cool feature. This furthers the goal of getting people talking about them. Incorporating the services of a warm and fuzzy brand like Hallmark is also a great move. People like it when others care about them when they are sick. Why not associate your brand with these good feelings?

Why Do I Spread the Word?

Cold-Eeze’s marketing isn’t out of this world. They can do more to develop conversations on the social web. This would help generate more word of mouth. There aren’t any advocacy programs that I can point to. They don’t produce viral videos. They don’t plaster the airwaves with advertisements and magazines aren’t dripping with their ads.

I don’t work for Quigley’s and they certainly don’t give me anything for constantly recommending their product. I don’t need them to though it would be nice . I also don’t own their stock–maybe I should? Ultimately, the main reason why I spread the word about Cold-Eeze is because of something very basic, the first P of the 4 P’s of marketing that every graduate out of college knows: Product.

Cold-Eeze works.

Now, there is one other factor that leads me to be an advocate. Cold-Eeze is not so popular that everyone knows about them or has tried them. Of course, that’s not exactly good for Quigley’s bottom line but, I promote Cold-Eeze because I feel that it is a secret I know.

I have the secret to shorter colds and it is Cold-Eeze. The day that Cold-Eeze becomes widely known–the day they plaster the world with ads–I will no longer have this advantage. Everyone would know about it and the advocates would die out.

So until then, I recommend you fight your cold with Cold-Eeze!