monica on marketing

The real audience and the actual audience (a tribute to Barron Blackman)

2011-05-28T10:14:00.000-07:00

barron in 1979, with ruth pritchard

so the last couple of weeks have been extremely challenging ones, as my team and i endeavored to stand up a new global integrated website. it was a massive undertaking -- 15 million words, 1100 pages, ultimately to be rendered in 16 languages. we were pulling much of this content from a constellation of 50+ hard-coded legacy sites, none of which shared any sort of common taxonomy or nav with any of the others. it would be like going to a rag-tag orphanage and saying, "ok children... we're now going to change your hair color, eye color, facial structure, height, weight and body type, as well as what you say and how you speak and where you live and go to school, so that you appear to have the same parents and all these other kids appear to be your siblings."

anyone who's ever done this knows what a beast it is. you have to try to drag in an enormous number of people, each of whom is typically invested in his/her unique environment and doesn't often understand how the whole is better than the sum of the parts. sometimes they come willingly, sometimes kicking and screaming, and sometimes not at all. we had some of each of these in our project. to try to drive to a specified completion date, we pressed on without complete input, hoping that we were getting it right enough to start and we'd fix the rest on the fly. one thing we didn't do, though, was to involve our distribution network, because we weren't intending to change any of the extranet tools they use to interact with the business. it was supposed to be business-as-usual for them; our thought was that their input on the website itself would be represented by our internal group of testers as well as a number of external users we surveyed for content organization, site usability, intuitiveness of navigation, etc.

many years ago, i went to high school with a guy named barron blackman, who was one of the most brilliant, creative people in my circle of friends. we stayed in touch throughout college and afterwards, during which time he formed Ate Trax, a small media production company, with his younger brother and another friend of ours. Ate Trax -- and barron directly -- was responsible for some of the most creative B2B industrial work i've done in my career, including for square D company, where i worked in the early 1990s. here's a clip of barron trying to help us market some important educational content that wasn't seeming to get noticed via traditional means:

the square d sales force, which was the target audience, ate this stuff up with a spoon and actually learned something from it ... but the company's executives didn't care for it, thinking it too funny for business purposes (i find it interesting that 20 years later, not much has changed in this vein, despite the huge popularity of humor as a marketing driver and educational tool). barron had a way of describing this, which was to talk about the "real" audience and the "actual" audience. the "real" audience is the people who are the target for what you're trying to communicate. the "actual" audience is the people who will naysay or even kill your great ideas because they don't understand the "real" audience and believe themselves to be the target of your communications, even though they're not.

in the case of our website, these channel partners turned out to be the "actual" audience. they'd been using the legacy constellation of sites for so long that the new site, because it was different, was automatically worse even though it fixed obvious problems. for example, in the legacy constellation, additions of products or capabilities were simply tacked onto the bottom of lists because it was easier than trying to figure out how to insert them in the code to keep the list alphabetically organized. in the new site, items appear in logical alpha order automatically. but when one has neural pathways that say "in this site, F comes after R," that kind of change can be difficult. these folks are looking at products pasted squarely in the middle of the page and not seeing them. this is typical in web updates, and usually these issues resolve themselves fairly quickly as users revisit the site and re-form those neural pathways to match the new nav.

the real audience is not having issues -- we know this because on the server we can see them moving about swiftly, downloading with abandon, apparently finding material with no issues. the actual audience, on the other hand, wants us to make the new site look like the old site. this is rather like saying we should build a new house with the same creaky boards and bad lighting of our old houses, which doesn't make much sense. so we're busying ourselves with giving them tools to sort of guide their journey in the new house; links pages that say "ok, what you had in that cabinet before is here now" and "this new closet has all the stuff that was wadded up into a ball in that space under the stairs" so they can find what they're looking for more easily. i'm hoping it will work.

barron sadly took his life last week; he had just turned 51. he'd been struggling with depression and a host of other issues for many years. i'd not been in touch with him in some time, and i feel terrible about that. but i'll always remember his comments about "the real audience and the actual audience." his advice, as i recall, was to stay focused on the real audience and hope that the actual audience eventually comes around.

in keeping with my company's social media policy, it should be noted that this blog represents my personal views on marketing and communication, and not necessarily those of my employer.

A tale of 2 cities: Dallas vs Youngstown

2011-02-06T11:20:00.000-08:00

so, finally ... it's today. after massive -- ok, just 2, but it still felt massive -- weeks of build-up, the packer/steelers craze has reached full tilt here in milwaukeeville. today's Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, which most days is not what i would call an icon of journalistic excellence despite its coupla Pulitzer prizes for local reporting, could not bring itself to avoid mention of The Game in ANY section. sports, ok-- obviously. even local -- i get it. but the food section featuring a giant 2-page story on green and gold vegetables? seriously, enough already. fortunately, we also get the Chicago Trib (which i think of as the "real" paper) so we could also see the continuing coverage on the mess that is egypt. and curiously, my response to that issue is also "seriously, enough already."

i personally am a steelers fan by birth and a packer fan by marriage, so clearly the best option for me would be to spend the next 5 hours under the covers or getting buried in a 6' snowdrift in my front yard. but instead i am blogging about it, which, really, is sort of the same thing.

many of the stories in the paper today quoted people talking about the SuperBowl as a "national celebration," a "break from mid-winter blues," and even "part of America's civil religion." it seems to me these make too much of the thing ... but then again, when 1 out of every 3 US households are watching, i guess it's a pretty big deal. many people would correct me here and comment on how this isn't just a US event -- it is, they would say, a truly global behemoth with quite possibly more than a billion people worldwide tuning in. of course, these same people are sadly misguided in that assessment, given that a truly global behemoth would be just about any World Cup event, with a global audience minimally 30 times that size.

what bugs me most about this is that (and no offense to the sport fan readers, including the one with whom i share my life) the size of the game and the accompanying hoopla drowns out stuff that has the sad misfortune to occur within the swirling vortex of all that is the Super Bowl. for instance, earlier today i asked that same sports fan, "what do you think it would take to get people to focus on something else besides the game?" he looked at me blankly. i pressed on, "what about a terrorist incident? what if another city got attacked?" he said, kidding, "well, it would depend upon when and where it happened, and how close that was to gametime."

in a terrible ironic twist, he just called me regarding today's shooting at Youngstown State. and so i wonder how much attention Youngstown, Ohio will be getting today. will the networks dispatch crews from Texas to Ohio for continuing coverage, the way they would have if this sad event happened yesterday, or tomorrow? or will they just report on this story up to gametime, take a break for 4 hours, and resume as though nothing had happened in that stretch of time? will they just run crawls under the game footage, bringing us up to date in words, so as not to disturb the pictures of Rogers and Roethlisberger living up to their potential the way Jamail Johnson, the 25-year old who was shot and killed about 3 hours ago, will never get a chance to? it will be interesting to see which city -- Youngstown or Dallas-- is more in the headlines today. i am a betting woman, and i wouldn't be picking the former. i've had ESPN on for the last hour or so, and haven't heard a word yet.

when i was thinking about this post yesterday, i was planning to make it all about the hoopla -- the ads, the BEPs twitter-led halftime, the event craziness and the other things that make it a marketer's dream. i was going to talk about the possibilities for local companies and organizations in any community to ride along on the hype, as was so cleverly done by the Wisconsin Humane Society and its local Puppy Bowl. but now all i can think of is what's going on -- and what's not -- in Youngstown.

the third dog

2011-01-16T19:03:00.000-08:00

so. it's been a year. actually, for those of you who like to acknowledge the passage of time in arcane ways, it's been 1 year, 6 weeks and 1 day. if we had been marking my blog posts on the molding of your kitchen doorway, there would be a giant gap between the last post and now, as though some weird growth hormone had alluvasudden kicked in. when i was a child (well, okay ... until the time i was 17 and was forced to acknowledge that it was likely i'd be vertically-challenged for the rest of my adult life), i would occasionally ask my mother to do that doorframe thing. she refused, at the time claiming the house was dirty enough without us intentionally writing on the walls. with the benefit of a few decades of hindsight, i now know it was because SHE knew the growth hormone was not going to kick in. she was 4'10," married to a guy who was 5'2," and mother of 2 other girls who were maybe 5'1" (including the one who says she's 5'3"). indeed, my mother was no idiot, and she was clearly aware of what was not going to happen, pencil marks be damned.

anyway, there are a number of reasons why i've been absent from this venue, and trust me, they're all good. but the one about which i must opine today presents itself in the form of Bosco Levy, the third dog in the Levy household ... and today's marketing metaphor.

Bosco is a rescue dog who came to us last summer. he'd been nearly starved to death and you could see his ribs from across the room. you'd think that would've made him a mean, aggressive dog (ask anyone who knows me well about how i get when there's no chow), but he's really a very sweet creature -- in fact, almost overly so. he has what, in dog training parlance, are sometimes called "attachment isssues."

this means he sometimes is a giant pain in the ass, like when you've got a giant basket of laundry in your hands and he gets under your feet, and both you and the laundry go flying. or when you step outside for a minute and he nearly commits doggie suicide by attempting to jump over the 2nd-level deck railing. or when you're on the phone on a very important conference call, and he decides he needs to sit in your lap RIGHT THEN. did i mention that the act of covering the afore-mentioned ribs has made him an 80-lb dog? he cannot actually fit in my lap, but that doesn't keep him from trying.

i love this dog desperately, but he just wants to be too close. and this, dear readers, is where i'm going with today's post. often in marketing, you hear people say "we've got to stay close to our customers." and as a general rule and correctly practiced, that's ok. it means we need to be keeping our eyes open on their behalf, checking in with them occasionally, and absolutely being there for them when they need something, asap or sooner. it does not mean we should be stalking them, following up unnecessarily, or pestering them with repeated requests for lunch or drinks, no matter how big our expense budgets are. or putting our giant doggy head underneath the elbow that's holding the coffee cup and making a big mess of the kitchen table.

it also means we shouldn't be purporting to give them something for free when really it's not free at all. earlier today, i wanted to download a "complimentary" document from the website of a firm with whom i've done business in the past, which is why i'm on their email list. (and by the way, they sort of abuse the privilege of emailing me, but that's for another post.) so i click on the link, expecting to get the "free" document, and see one of these ubiquitous contact form things that wants to know my name, my company, etc. this is annoying for at least 2 reasons:

I AM A CUSTOMER. shouldn't they already know my name, address, etc? i'm on their frigging email list, for goodness sakes. why are they asking me to spend my time giving them info they already have? if my time is money, then is the document really free? or does it cost, actually, the amount of money represented by the amount of time it takes me to fill in their stupid contact form?
even if i weren't a customer, it's disingenuous to call the document "free" when i have to give them something of value to get it. i suppose they don't think of my personal info as having "value" -- except when they're attempting to quantify the value of the "free document" program to their superiors -- but still, it pisses me off, and that doesn't really work to their benefit, does it? even Bosco can tell you that the cookies are not likely to come out when i'm in this particular mental state.

i'm hopeful that eventually Bosco will chill out and realize that i'm still gonna be here for him, whether i'm upstairs, or around the corner or tied up on a call for a couple of hours. and so hopefully we as marketers will be able to relax and realize that sometimes less is more, and that you have a better shot at getting somebody to contact you based on a "free" document if that document is in fact really free.

is your brand kicking your customer's seat?

2009-12-04T08:38:00.000-08:00

the guy behind me is kicking my seat. not hard enough to make me turn and give him the death-stare (which is most effective on little kids but also works on some adults), but hard enough to be mildly annoying. I’m now having to sit up ramrod-straight, which my mother would have appreciated but which still is a minor inconvenience on this short 40-minute flight.

it makes me wonder if there’s a brand analogy for this – when a company or product inconveniences you enough to be irritated, but not enough to do anything about it (at the moment, at least). is this the insurance company that forces you to endure phone-tree-system hell, the cable company that responds to your reports of intermittent outages but doesn’t ever really fix the problem completely – yeah, that’s you, Time Warner – or even the crazy potato peeler that does a pretty good job until you accidentally shift your grip just an iota and –youch! – where’s that box of Band-Aids?

we know from experience that customers will actually put up with a truckload of crap from poor brands, products, services, and companies because doing anything different is just too hard. in industry parlance, this is called “switching costs” and in my view applies to both the economic and emotional hurdles that one has to vault in order to deal with something new.

switching barriers are thought to be most significant in situations where complex processes are in place – imagine, say, a conveyor line in a manufacturing facility, where replacing something typically has huge time/money implications – but I’d argue that consumers confront them in virtually every situation where satisfaction is lacking. because at some point, the nature and/or amount of perceived benefit that can be gained from the switch exceeds the pain (both financial and emotional) that has to be endured to receive that benefit.

“perceived” is an important idea here. lots of brands have managed to get companies to switch just based on spin. this has been the case since the beginning of time in the wireless industry, where the level of marketplace churn – people moving between service providers in search of a decent-quality phone, with a simple, affordable plan, and coverage that actually enables you to use them both – is unparalleled.

remember what happened when they introduced number portability? I got in line immediately, if not sooner, to move from my then-current crappy carrier to its competitor, which was also crappy but it was at least a type of crap I hadn’t yet experienced. I then learned that the new crap was in fact worse than the old crap and switched back. Didn’t you?

my point…and I do have one …is that your customers may be closer to making the switch than you’d think. are you doing everything you can to ensure their complete surprise, delight and satisfaction with your company, brand, product, and services? Or are you kicking their seat just a little bit because it’s easier than figuring out how not to kick it and you’re pretty sure they’re ok with your crap and wouldn’t be motivated to check out somebody else’s?

and now, please excuse me while I move across the aisle -- where the seat behind me is unoccupied.

photo credit: the quickten.com

sneers & jeers for tiers

2009-11-08T19:07:00.000-08:00

I know a PR dinosaur who insists the world of media relations should be regarded as some kind of medieval caste system in which there exists a “top tier” and a “second tier.” This is, of course, completely ridiculous, but in the interest of fairness to the prehistoric world, let us examine why the dinosaur believes this to be true.

In ancient times –- say, 1980-something, before widespread acceptance and use of the Internet and www -- it used to be that media outlet reach was the holy grail for pr professionals. Large newspapers like the NY Times and the Wall St. Journal, key news magazines like Time, NewsWeek and USN&WR, the wire services and the 3 broadcast outlets -- yes, this was pre-FOX and CNN,too -- delivered the largest audiences available.

Back then, if you worked in a pr agency, there was no better path to a continuing client retainer than favorable coverage of that client in one or more of those outlets. Since the metrics at the time were equally antiquated (see my post regarding clip counting and calculating value based on ad rates here), many pr folks made the argument that focusing on these “top tier” outlets made the most sense because coverage by those outlets would deliver the greatest value. And therefore, any publication or media outlet which had a smaller audience was defacto a “second tier” organization irrespective of the content it provided, the nature of its readers/viewers, or its ability to shape or drive perceptions.

Fortunately, some of us have been able to grow 2 additional toes on our hands and feet, lose the giant teeth and simultaneously expand our understanding of modern media relations. IMO, this view includes the following:

PR value is driven by an outlet’s ability to persuade the target. To be sure, it’s still a great thing if you can score a highly positive story in the NYT or the WSJ… but the problem is, how do we know your lovely bit on page B12 below the fold in the 4th column was even seen by a fraction of the publication’s readers, let alone what they thought of it? On the other hand, we know exactly how many people viewed a Youtube vid and what at least some of them thought based on the comments they left. Plus, and it's a big duh, i know, content is king. As REO Speedwagon said (in roughly the time of the afore-mentioned dinosaurs), "talk is cheap if the story is good." We all know viral is here to stay, so it makes sense to get over the fact that people actually believe things they read and hear from sources other than the media moguls.

The most influential people don’t necessarily work for the largest outlets. In fact, there’s been much ado over the fact that those “top tier” folks are increasingly looking to the blogosphere, specialized content providers and other independent voices for story fodder and perspective. If you’re in, say, “green” arena, it’s good to have the ear of folks like Tom Friedman at the NYT … but you ignore Joel Makower, who writes for Green Biz, at your peril. I routinely see Joel’s ideas and stories surface in mainstream outlets, and he’s heavily quoted as an expert in the field. You don’t often see journalists quoted, except on stories about journalism. (Friedman is an exception to this, but then again I’d argue he’s not your average journalist-bear).

Immediacy trumps reach. I’m no psychologist, but I’d bet heavily there’s some scientific data indicating that a person’s ultimate perception of an issue is heavily influenced by the first information he/she gets about the topic. One may change one’s mind, of course, as more information becomes available from various sources … but it’s tough to undo the impact of the initial salvo. So the weapons of choice for savvy pr practioners have to include Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and other real-time digital communications. As I said in "citizen reporting," breaking news has moved from the province of broadcast media alone to become something any human with a cellphone can create, without the benefit of editors, lawyers, or corporate communications policies. So instead of thinking, “I have to build a relationship with CNN” … think “what’re the folks at CNN looking at right now?” and participate there. This is the equivalent of skating not to where the puck is, but rather to where it's headed.

Priorities are useful -- I'm not saying that one shouldn't perhaps have a list of folks who are "must-go-tos" vs. "if-i-have-time-fors" on any particular topic ... I'm just trying to make the point that those priorities should be carefully framed based upon whom you're targeting, what you want to convince them of, and what types of results you're trying to achieve, not simply how many people may (or may not) be listening.

If you’ve got the bad luck of working for a dinosaur, or having one work for you … just try to sit tight and muddle through as best you can. We all know what happens to them, eventually.

photo credit: fugsgirl

Are people drawing their shades on your brand?

2009-09-30T12:04:00.000-07:00

ok, this is a long set up but hang in with me...

as willy & hoover would tell you (if they could speak English), i'm in close contention for the dubious honor of world's worst cook. despite this, they continue to beg for food at the table, with varying degrees of success related, more often than not, to the level of puppy-eyes that they manage to deliver.

today, their efforts paid off with a hunk of something called "amish friendship bread."

the recipe for this bread apparently has been around for decades. it essentially involves a yeast-based starter, to which you add flour, milk, and sugar, and then you divide the mix into 4 portions. you keep one of the portions for yourself, and give the remaining 3 to your friends (hence the "friendship" in the name).

i got a starter portion from my neighbor, and, not wanting to disappoint her or develop any bad amish karma, followed the directions that left me searching for friends who i thought might actually do this as opposed to laughing hysterically and throwing the stuff away (which is what i would have done, had i received it from one of them).

a note from one came back with a comment that i thought was particularly compelling. it said, among other funny things, the following:

We have had this starter twice before, and I am always smitten with it. I vow every time that I won't let it die . . . ever. But then you end up with a freezer full of bread, 10 new lbs. and a bunch of friends who draw the shades when they see you coming with the dough.

yes, a long set up indeed, but hence the title of this post.

are your customers' friends drawing the shades when they see that dough -- your brand -- coming their way? i've mentioned before my point of view that turning customers into advocates is really the only true, sustainable way of building the virtuous cycle that delivers a strong brand. but what happens when your advocates run into challenges that keep that word-of-mouth, pass-the-bread-starter mojo from taking hold? minimally, a few things:

1) your advocates start to qualify their advocacy (as if "qualified advocacy" weren't already an oxymoron, of sorts.) if so many of their friends could have a bad experience with your brand, it must be that their positive one was a fluke. so as they go around, they'll say things like, "you know, i got a great product/service from brand x, but i heard others didn't."

2) your advocates start to lapse into neutrality. nobody wants to deliver positive word-of-mouth on a (potentially) bad brand, so often they won't say anything at all about it. if pushed, they'll go with something like, "yeah, i looked around at a bunch of different options, and this is what i ended up with. it's ok."

3) your advocates start to reverse polarity. it's hard to believe this can happen, but it does. when confronted with lots of bad examples from their community on whatever the brand in question is, the former advocate will begin looking for things that aren't yet wrong with the product/service ... but maybe all of a sudden it's not quite as good as he/she thought it would be. and when asked (and sometimes, even when not prompted), the person will say something like, "you know, i got this thing and i really regret my decision."

these conversations between friends matter more than any other element of the marketing mix. don't believe me? read andy sernovitz. read chris brogan and julien smith's "trust agents." think about times (and be honest) when your mind about something got changed, not because of something that actually happened to you but because of something somebody else said about what happened to them.

net net: don't set your advocates up to fail by delivering great experiences to a select few while you treat the rest of your target poorly. otherwise, when the advocates come calling, they'll find the shades drawn, and nobody home.

photo credit: wikipedia

acronym soup and other pointless marketing distinctions

2009-09-11T13:18:00.000-07:00

B2C. B2B. CPG. FMCG. ABC123UNME. i have seen the google serps on this topic, and i am more than a little disappointed. oh, marketers of the 21st century (or at least the last 5 years), apostles of david meerman scott and seth godin and andy sernovitz, where are you with your salient comments on how these distinctions no longer apply (or at the very least, need to be re-addressed in light of web 2.0, social media, democratization of technology, and the like?)

those who believe that there are important differences between B2B and B2C generally make the following arguments:

1. B2B sales are more complex, influenced by more people, have longer lead times, and higher dollar values than B2C sales.

2. therefore, B2B buyers are more "rational" vs. emotional, purchase generally based on cost, quality or other measurable factors, and require marketing materials packed with data and devoid of personality.

3. if you use B2C tactics on B2B audiences, or vice versa, you'll fail miserably, put on weight, and die an early but well-deserved death, which will be a fitting punishment for your failure to follow these archaic rules that were cobbled together when dinosaurs roamed and most people, including bill gates, thought that 64K would be quite enough RAM for anyone, thank you.

here's the deal. the factors affecting the success of marketing -- and i do mean ALL marketing -- as the necessary juice in the great fat delicious orange of commerce have been changing rapidly and remarkably on virtually a moment-to-moment basis due to technological innovation and the ability of people to quickly and easily communicate with each other. Companies, irrespective of their products, services or offerings all have been thrown into a giant information vortex that is propelled by the Web ... and by what i like to think of as a virtuous cycle of understanding and influencing human behavior in a way that puts money in the coffers of those organizations that are generally (tho not always) most deserving.

Monica's Virtuous Cycle of Understanding and Influencing Human Behavior (or "Marketing," if you must).

in my world, this is the way all customers -- those who are buying furiously expensive stuff for data centers AND those who're thinking it might be time for a new car that doesn't smell like dirty dogs AND those who're just wanting some chewing gum -- are properly "marketed" to.

identification. whether you're selling machine tools or mister potato head, you need to correctly identify your targets (see dm scott's world wide rave for an excellent take on "buyer personas"). what links those folks together in a compelling manner? (clue -- it's how they think and why they think that way, not how old they are or where they live.).

attraction. if you really understand your bps, you can figure out the best ways to attract them. where do they hang out, and with whom? is it some industry association or business roundtable or charitable event, or a neighborhood bar or the privacy of their own home with the dvr going while they surf the web? again -- whether the buyer is purchasing for business or personal reasons matters not. what matters is that you have something that will solve his/her problems and, if you've done a good job in correctly understanding his/her needs, he/she will usually be willing to listen.

engagement. and if only "listening" and "engagement" were the same thing. they're related, but listening is more just the front-end. engagement is the back-end ... the hard, hard work of making promises to your customers (as a brand, as a company, as a sales or customer service person, whatever) and keeping them. it's the business of delivering surprise and delight, whether it's in how easily the server software installed or how cool the gps map thing is or how the gum comes in a package that keeps the stuff from turning into melty mush in the summer heat.

retention. some people think that if they simply do engagement right, retention is a given. but sadly, that's not true in any kind of human relationships -- marriages included. customers, irrespective of what kinds of things they buy, the cycle they buy them on, or any of that other old-style marketing drivel, MUST feel that you care about them if you want them to buy from you again. whether you do this through rebates or coupons or email offers or dinners at trade shows, it's vitally important. i know a terrific pr guy who ends every meeting with the question: "how else can i help you?" just this simple act yields repeat business on a regular basis.

advocacy. i wish that this happened automatically, sort of a reward for our dutiful following of the cycle, and sometimes it does -- but more often, advocates have to be cultivated. think about the number of times you've made a recommendation to someone on a product or service APART from them asking you a prompting question. this is the difference between getting a good net promoter score -- not an unimportant thing, by the way -- and leads, revenue and margin increases that begin with your customers making an effort to help their colleagues, friends and family get the same great experience from you that they themselves have received. twitter and facebook, in my view, have completely upended how we've thought of advocacy in the past, as people can quickly and easily pass along recommendations, special offers, and their personal word-of-mouth mojo on behalf of brands and companies they trust. of course, advocacy also makes your job in identification and attraction much easier, since customers will now enter the cycle with the kind of positive mindset that makes the rest of wheel much easier to traverse.

what do you think? are there really key differences between these audiences that take precedence over the simple fact that people are people, given how much easier it now is for them to get information and form opinions? do we take off our human hat when we sit down at our company desk, somehow mysteriously clearing our subconsious of preconceived notions of brands?

photo credit: codyfrew.wordpress.com. if you're going to copy my "virtuous cycle," please credit me and this post.

short attention span theater

2009-08-29T18:58:00.000-07:00

a while back, i blogged about my obsession with dave carroll and united breaks guitars. to date, the original video has racked up more than 5 million views inside of a month. it's really pretty amazing. even dave didn't expect nearly that much attention, having set a goal of a million views over the course of the year. the more interesting thing is that this vid drew nearly 2 million views in about 5 days, no doubt propelled by mainstream media coverage on CNN and other broadcast and print outlets.

in the accompanying story on his site, dave talks about how he promised united he was going to make a series of 3 videos about this incident. i thought that was the wrong approach when i read about it, and now that i've seen "song 2," (check out the second window in the right hand column) i'm even more convinced.

as rajesh setty points out in his excellent post on what makes viral videos take off, "second acts are not easy....if the followup isn't 10x better than the original, it won't fly."

he's right, of course. but that's not why dave's second vid isn't pulling eyeballs (so far, only about 250,000 views in its first week). the song 2 vid is, in a certain way, better. it's got more action, more people, an equally hooky tune. what it doesn't have, though -- and rajesh leaves this element out of his list -- is what i'd call "audience care-about." all those people who hate united for its poor service (disclosure: i'm in that group) spent their care-about capital on the first vid, so now there's really nothing left for the follow-up.

this was not true, say, for "where the hell is matt #2," the viral sensation that actually pulled more viewers than the first video which showed matt dancing all by himself. our care-about capital in the first instance is invested in the idea that this crazy soul has traveled all over the world and danced in some pretty interesting places; in the follow-up, we're even more taken with the idea that he can, and does, get everyone from aboriginal people to young children to nursing home residents to join him in the dance.

(there's something about dancing, as well, that grabs peoples' attention. you have to look no further than the assortment of reality shows on network tv to see proof of that. perhaps it's because most of us can't do it? even the vids of people dancing in train stations, etc. are highly viewed, i think, because they're about dancing, not about interrupting public life).

seth godin's comments on the nature of viral are also pretty interesting, but even they don't really address this idea of "short attention span theater," which i think characterizes how most people deal with most things. we have long, sustained attention for the few things we love that hold us relentlessly in their grasp -- our kids, our pets, our gardens, our favorite tom clancy novel. oh, and sometimes our spouses, especially when they're pissed off about something.

but for pretty much everything else, we have only small, fragmented bits of attention, and most of these are divested on the things that wish they had (and claim to deserve) our long, sustained attention -- say, our bosses, our colleagues, our friends and family whom we say we'll call but rarely do, our gardens, our cars, the laundry that's been piled up for weeks now.

so how're we to make time for viral video or ideas? i think to succeed, such material has to be a combination of what rajesh and seth posit -- compelling and interesting, easy to send and worthwhile to share, etc. -- plus something else: the ability to sneak in the short attention span theatre by being something we truly care about and are willing to entertain.

what's your favorite viral vid, and why? how many people did you pass it along to? when people send you links to viral vids, what determines whether or not you watch them and pass them along?

remember me?

2009-08-25T16:36:00.000-07:00

ok... am i the only one who has this problem?

you know what i'm talking about. you go to a website -- pick one, any one -- that you've been to about a thousand times, and every time where it's supposed to say, "welcome,(your name)," it says:

1 Remember me.

I've come to hate the stupid little check box. it's like there's some vast conspiracy out there that is purposely not remembering me. which wouldn't be so bad, if they hadn't led me to believe that they WOULD remember me, if i checked the little box.

from my perspective, this is one part IT ineptitude, one part poor web manners, and one part ineffective user interface all rolled into one giant nightmare of bad online brand experience.

it's made all the more annoying because, when i in fact can't remember my username or which of the 25 email addresses i might have used, let alone the same number of passwords, i take advantage of their kind offer to email me that info. and they do....and so then i KNOW they DO know who i am. i guess it's comforting, in a way, that they're not going to let me log in if they're not sure i'm me, but couldn't they do this in a way that's somehow more user-friendly?

the reason i'm asking if i'm the only one with the problem is that a google search on "remember me" turns up plenty of serps, but none related to this topic. there are the movies, the song lyrics, even the jewelry, but you gotta go to halfway down page 2 before you find this utility from cappware. but the thing is, the look and feel of this page doesn't give me that snuggly secure feeling about what they're offering. i don't like the idea of storing my passwords all in one place no matter how safe they tell me it is. and the fact that they're asking for donations makes me wonder whether or not this stuff is actually any good at all.

a couple of entries later, i see something about drupal.org , the open source content management provider, that's interesting because they're apparently offering the ability for sites to tailor the length of sessions stored on their servers. so i'm now wondering if the reason i'm not being remembered is that i simply didn't visit the sites in question frequently enough... although i have a hard time believing that, perhaps it's so. i don't think of myself as an i'net noob (proven here by my use of the term "noob") but i just didn't realize that mr. checkbox's promise of remembering me would last only so long.

perhaps we're all meant to simply go along with the flow, being ok with not being remembered, all in the interest of protecting our online identity and security of our personal info. i guess that's what i've been doing (all the while being annoyed, but not annoyed enough to actually do anything about it), and i guess most others have been doing the same thing. it's a tradeoff, like so many others -- except here the websites are making the trade on our behalf without telling us.

what do you think? are you annoyed at not being remembered? should sites tell you how long they plan to remember you? or should i just go on to blathering about other, more important stuff?

community: a slingshot for little brands

2009-08-16T08:46:00.000-07:00

a few days ago, the lead story on Yahoo was about some big brands like Starbucks, Apple and BP and how they've changed their logos to increase their appeal to their audiences, or change audience perceptions. i've spent a fair portion of my career working on corporate identity issues, and so i was interested to read the opinions of some of the experts quoted in the story. in particular, one guy, asked about the IBM logo-- you know, the 3 blue letters with all the lines going through them -- said "because of its simplicity and originality, 'you have a hard time desiring to mess with it.'"

seriously? i've been wanting to mess with that thing since it came out in 1972. of course, i was a child at the time, so they didn't take me up on it. (note to IBM: i'm sometimes an adult now. call me, we'll talk.)

i raise this story on big brands to get to the point of this post, which is how little brands with logos that are perhaps recognized by those companies' employees and few others, can use community as a lever to propel their brands. community is, of course, much discussed in the social media universe as a way of creating engagement between brands and their customers, and while i've appreciated that intellectually as a marketer i didn't really appreciate it fully as a target until i saw this.

that's right, it's the "cutest dog competition," sponsored by All-American Pet Brands, which is a company i've never heard of, and dog.com, which is a website i've never been to. yet, when a colleague (thanks, D) sent a link to the competition website, it took only one click to hook me. here's why:

1) it's emotional. they are talking about the "cutest dog." show me a dog-mama who doesn't think her dogs are the cutest, and i'll show you a woman with no soul. even the mothers of ugly dogs are mistakenly under the impression that their dogs are cute.

2) it has scale. with nearly 75 million owned dogs in the US, that's a helluva community. more than 32,000 people have posted photos of their dogs on the site ... and with some dogs getting thousands of votes from site visitors who are not the owners, i'm guessing that site traffic is pretty extraordinary. and with a one-vote-per-day max, they've automatically ensured return traffic from at least some of those motivated-to-vote visitors.

3) it's easy. whoever thought this up deserves kudos for complying with KISS (keep it simple, stupid) criteria. click on "upload your photo," enter a few pieces of basic info, and get people to vote for your dog(s). there's a million bucks in it for the winner, with smaller prizes for the runner-ups.

4) it's not overly hard-sell. let's not kid ourselves -- this is about community, yes, but it's also ultimately about selling some chow. the market for pet food and supplies in north america is about $25 billion annually, and All American is clearly interested in taking some share from better-known brands. but they're not forcing the brand on site visitors. it really is mostly about the competition, with some corollary, relatively unobtrusive graphics and messaging about All American's products. i like and respect them more for this, and that feeling will manifest itself positively, i think, the next time i'm in the pet store looking for food and treats.

this is really just another david-and-goliath story, where a small brand takes on big brands, armed only with a slingshot and the idea that size is not necessarily a precursor for success. in skillfully targeting the community of dog owners and lovers, and making it fun and easy for them to engage, All-American is showing us a great example we'd do well to emulate.

p.s. willy and hoover, in a shameless ploy for votes, are insisting that i publish their respective photo urls, along with a request to please vote for them early and often.

willy: http://www.cutestdogcompetition.com/vote.cfm?h=1B8DD488AC14A38D62F90F420734CD43

hoover: http://www.cutestdogcompetition.com/vote.cfm?h=428D4B30BE9D9F5012AB7D6C8515C715

willy, hoover and michael vick

2009-07-28T17:53:00.000-07:00

hey everyone! willy & hoover here with a new post. we made mom let us do this one since we sort of have, shall we say, a bone to pick on what's to become of michael vick. you might guess us to be among those who think that vick should never be allowed to play football (or any other sport) again, anywhere, anytime. but that would be wrong.

in fact, we think he should be immediately re-instated and we really think he ought to play in as many games during the season as possible. why? because we think he should get every penny of his prior contract ($9M base, $6.5M bonus, $45M remainder, $3M pro-bowl bonus). contingent upon an arrangement, that is, where 51% of that money, along with the same percentage of his future earnings from all sources for the next decade, is given to the Humane Society and the ASPCA.

Vick reportedly is to do some work with the Humane Society, putting his "boots on the ground" in cities around the country, helping convince teens in urban areas that dogfighting isn't cool. that's nice, but he could do so much more. ASPCA CEO Ed Sayres was gracious in his statement acknowledging Vick's return to football. and that was nice, but he could ASK for so much more ... like, $33M for just the rest of the current contract.

we're not that good at math, so not sure these numbers are entirely correct, but follow our wagging tails on this one...

at an average $2/lb (probably less if you got it in bulk from costco), $33M buys, uh ... 16.5 million lbs of dog food. now, the 2 of us are hungry boys, and we admit we eat our share, which is about 1/4 lb per day. so that means the dog-devoted share of vick's fortune would feed about 60 million dogs for a year. we're not sure how many dogs are in shelters across the country but we hope it's not that many. anyway, that's some chow.

at an average $50/dog per vaccine, and again, it's probably less if you're buying it large quantities and not from our vet -- $33M buys 6 million rabies and bordatella shots, and other vital preventatives like heartworm medicine.

so many shelters run in the red, or close to it. at a grant of $100,000 each, $33M means 330 of these places could add badly need space, medical services, food and personnel.

and that's just thru 2013; no doubt there would be additional money "going to the dogs" for a number of years afterwards.

so we think you probably get the idea. michael vick is worth alot more to us dogs if he's playing and cutting us in on his earnings than if he's not. and it's not like we're wanting it all -- meaning that he ought to be pretty grateful to have done what he did and still end up making $5M a year.

we think pet lovers around the country (and we know a few) will be pretty angry about vick's return, and may even boycott games and encourage others to do so ... if there's no reason for them to be happy about it. but if they knew that effectively half of whatever portion of his pay their ticket price delivers is going to help dogs around the country ... maybe they'd be a little less upset.

when you're a dog, you have the benefit of not overthinking things too much. you see the squirrel, you chase him, he runs up a tree, you move on. well, ok -- sometimes you spend 5 minutes barking at him until your dad tells you to shut up. but then you pretty much let it go and move onto the next thing. that's how we feel about michael vick. we probably won't ever like him -- but we like the idea that, having hurt a few of us, he's now in a really good position to help a whole lot of us. and that's a squirrel we can live with.

vick photo credit: steve helber, getty images

playing hooky, part 2

2009-07-15T13:35:00.000-07:00

so now i see that for once, i appear to have blogged about something before my heroes at mashable, who have now reported that dave carroll's united breaks guitars you tube video has racked up more than 3 million views in 10 days.

in my post, i talked about the fact that one of the reasons i think dave's video has gone viral is that it's a hooky little tune, and, in a nice double entendre, that united played hooky for a year on the topic.

but, dear readers, it's now come to my attention that there are yet other parties who are also playing hooky (to my great astonishment, actually): american airlines, delta airlines and southwest airlines, to name a few -- all of whom, i think, could take great advantage of this situation by doing something to differentiate themselves on a subject that appears to be of some great interest to the travelling public.

let's see what they're doing:

at american, (which is pretty much still my favorite airline even though i don't get to fly them a lot anymore), a search on "guitars" from their home page reveals a ton of text and tables on various baggage-related topics, including this regarding guitars:

Small musical instruments may be carried onboard the aircraft providing they meet existing carry-on size requirements and fit in the overhead bin or under the seat in front of you. Case dimensions may not exceed 45 dimensional inches (width + length + height), except for guitars which may be brought on board only if they can be safely stowed in an overhead bin or approved stowage location in the cabin. The instrument is considered the passenger's one allowed carry-on bag. A personal item is allowed in addition to the instrument. See Carry-On Allowance for more information.If an instrument is too large to fit in the carry-on baggage space, an additional seat may be purchased. In this case, an instrument must travel in a window, bulkhead seat, with the customer in the adjoining seat. Due to their size Bass Fiddles are not accepted in the coach cabin and are only accepted on certain aircraft types, please contact an American Airlines representative at 1-800-433-7300.Instruments may also be transported as checked baggage, however, due to their fragile nature AA does not accept liability for damages and has limited liability for loss. AA is also not liable for any damage to checked musical instruments not presented in a hard-sided case. If the outside of the hard-sided case does not have visible damage, AA is not liable for any damage to the musical instrument inside the case.

wow. not great. i think this is pretty much identical to united's language on the topic. but it makes me wonder whether or not in dave's case there was damage to the outside of the hard-sided case. if the bottom of the guitar was crushed in, i'd imagine that there would have to be damage to the case as well, and therefore, had dave been flying on american instead of united, it seems like he would have had a leg to stand on here

a search on "guitars" at the website of my friends at delta/northwest reveals an entire page devoted to the topic of musical instruments, which at least includes a statement indicating they "get" the importance of these items to their customers:

We know that your musical instrument is important to you and depending on the size, we accept musical instruments or equipment as checked baggage, carry-on baggage, or cabin-seat baggage. Please help us to keep your instrument safe by bringing it in a hard-shell case.

they then go on to tell you that you can pay for a regular seat to sit next to your guitar, etc. great. but even worse, they go on (on the page dealing with "delayed or damaged baggage" to let you know that they're no worse than anyone else:

Like most major airlines, we don't accept liability for damage to checked luggage such as:
Broken wheels or feet
Lost pull straps
Minor cuts and scratches
Damage resulting from over packing
Damage to retractable luggage handles
Fragile or perishable items damaged during transport
Items unsuitably packed or unsuitable for transportation
Damage resulting from Transportation Security Administration (TSA) inspections

yikes.

southwest airlines doesn't have a search box on its home page, and after hunting around for a while i finally resorted to the site map to see if i could find out anything about guitars. they do have, it turns out, a small section on musical instruments which says:

If your musical instrument does not meet the sizing requirements for carryon items (10”x16”x24”), it will be handled as checked baggage provided you do not wish to purchase a seat for the instrument. In the event you are traveling with a musical instrument that is larger than our sizing requirements for carryon luggage and is fragile in nature, you may purchase a seat for the instrument and carry it in the cabin under the following conditions:
The instrument must fit in the seat without blocking aircraft signage and be secured with a seatbelt.
The instrument must be placed in the first row and in a seat closer to the window than any other Customer in that row.
Reservations must be made and a ticket must be purchased at a charge no greater than the Child’s Fare. Musical instruments cannot be transported in place of a free companion under any fare promotion.
Instruments that are transported in a soft-sided case or other packaging that is not strong enough to protect the instrument under normal baggage handling conditions will be conditionally accepted, which means that Southwest assumes no liability for any damage sustained to the item during transport.

that's not really the warm, friendly southwest airlines we've come to love, is it? though they do have a cool viral video of their own which has gotten quite a bit of traffic in the last year.

c'mon, you airline marketers... where are you??? run a giant homepage banner saying something as simple as WE DON'T BREAK GUITARS (OR WE'LL PAY YOU WITHOUT HASSLE IF WE DO). i would bet you could expect significant pickup in the blogosphere, not to mention mainstream media who love nothing better than follow-on stories.

of course, this means that you should probably have a reasonably well-coordinated effort with your baggage-handling and customer service folks to ensure that you don't break any guitars -- or damage other luggage, either -- while you're promoting this capability (and afterwards, too, since the internet is forever and the aforementioned mainstream media, as well as the blogosphere and whatever else we have by that time, will make quite a stink about you if you fall into the poor baggage-treatment abyss. however, in that case you truly will be just like everyone else.

playing hooky

2009-07-10T12:49:00.000-07:00

a few of my followers know that years ago, i managed a rock n' roll band, thinking that it'd be a good way of combining fun and profit. after too much of the former and not nearly enough of the latter, i came to my senses and decided to pursue slightly more lucrative, if somewhat less melodius, work -- work which, it turned out, involved a fair amount of air travel and being subject to the poor customer service of the airlines. i think perhaps the soft spot i still have in my heart for musicians, coupled with my glee that finally an airline is being taken to task over its bad treatment of customers, are combining to keep me absolutely glued to the amazing social media frenzy that is the story of dave carroll and united breaks guitars.

(see video, right)

unless you've been under the same rock you might have been under during the susan boyle craze, you've probably heard about this. dave carroll, a musician travelling between halifax and nebraska, saw united airlines baggage handlers at o'hare tossing around his guitar and other equipment. he says his $3600 taylor guitar was broken as a result, and that united gave him the runaround for a year on his claim for damages. he finally had the guitar repaired for $1200 at his own expense, and decided he'd tell the world his story via a series of songs & videos.

his goal was to get 1 million youtube views in a year. this first video in the series was posted 4 days ago and he's already got nearly 1.5 million views and 15,000 comments, the vast majority of which are along the lines of "you go, dave!"

it should be noted that dave's is not nearly the first video to dis united. there are, in fact, several videos about the airlines treatment of musical instruments, which collectively have a few hundred views, and another regarding a bad travel day for a decidedly offbeat individual who goes by the name of nutcheese that's racked up nearly 50,000 views. so why all this mania now?

one of the things you learn when you're a band manager is that people would rather hear a hooky little tune a thousand times than some other songs even once. and dave's song is as hooky as they get, which is why after you've heard it once you can't get it out of your head until you hear something else equally hooky, say, like the pants song.

also, unlike nutcheese, dave is not a nut case. he is, however, quite possibly a test case. the social media bloggers have been all over this one, with a variety of points of view. my favorite conversation so far, i think, has got to be the one on seth simond's blog, where seth basically makes the assertion that dave could be fibbing, didn't follow united's established rules for reporting the damage, and suggests that it's not right that an individual can hijack social media to take a company to task in this way. he had a few folks agree with him (i wasn't one of them), suggesting that the situation points up the need for pr and communications folks to plan in advance how to handle these occurrences. many seemed to think (again, i'm not one of them) that united should have responded with a funny video of its own vs. caving to the pressure.

why my opposite point of view? because in my mind, united was playing hooky, too, but in a different way. they were nowhere on this subject -- that is, anywhere but engaging with their unhappy customer -- for a year. and when they did finally engage, they chose to avoid all responsibility. perhaps, as i pointed out in my comments to seth, if they had done something ... ANYTHING ... to help dave with the problem, he wouldn't have been so motivated to create the song. dave says as much in his write-up about the debacle.

now united says they're wanting to use this as an internal training vehicle. i can't help but wonder if that means they'll be training their agents to ask things like "are you a musician?" "can you sing?" "do you plan to use social media to fry us if we don't help you?" vs. really empowering people to do the right thing and put the customer first ... or at least, not leave him alone on the hook.

measurement, metrics and morons

2009-07-01T17:46:00.000-07:00

early last century, when mark twain popularized benjamin disraeli's famous "lies, damned lies, and statistics," i doubt he had any idea about just how frequently that phrase would come to be referenced by marketers the world over. today it seems that every conference, every webinar, every agency pitch has a bevy of charts and graphs included, seemingly with the intent of making it clear that they've found the holy roi grail and claimed it in the name of all that is right, good and worth paying more for.

those of us of more mature standing certainly remember a time when pr firms counted and physically measured news clippings, and then performed column-inch calculations to quantify the value of "free" news coverage in terms of the cost of advertising space in those publications. as one who was, as a junior account person in a large agency in those halcyon days, tasked to spend hours with ruler and calculator, i recall thinking, among other things:

"this is $*%&W$* stupid."

even to me, a pr neophyte at the time, the idea we would be trying to make an roi argument based on the expense of another medium vs. the true outcomes of our work simply didn't make sense. sadly, though, this kind of moronic thinking is still with us, as we see what i think is undue focus put on the level of activity measures -- everything from HUT levels to impressions to CTRs and even web "stickiness" minutes -- and not nearly enough on quantifying the relative impact that each of those engagement types has, and even more importantly, how they collectively meld to affect the target's perception.

this is important because (and it's amazing how many marketers miss this simple-but-not-easy-idea) customers do not buy based upon what you do. customers buy based upon how they think and feel as a result of what you -- and your competitors -- do (and sometimes, what you/they don't do).

if you believe, as i do, that people will act based upon their perceptions, then the most important thing to figure out is why they think the way they do, and what actions you can take that will have the highest likelihood of either reinforcing their positive assessments of your brand, or changing their minds if they have a neutral or negative mindset.

that's why ongoing tracking research is key. sometimes changing the customer's or prospect's mind is the most difficult thing in marketing (as it is in all relationships). it takes careful planning, concerted effort, and sometimes a fair amount of money because people don't often change their minds without clear rationale, personal experience, their boss's pointy finger, or some other compelling reason. and it almost never happens overnight.

what should you track? that depends upon your customers, your category, your brand, and a host of other factors. but i would say there are minimally 3 questions to which you should know the answers at all times:

1) what's important, and how do you do on what's important, relative to your competitors?
2) what must change for you to be perceived as different and better?
3) how can those changes be made in a clear, credible, compelling way?

note the inclusion of "perceived" in #2. you may in fact actually already be different and better, you're just not perceived that way. this is why activity without an understanding of relative impact on perception is useless. if you just keep doing the same stuff -- or even different stuff -- without tracking its impact on how people think, you're wasting your (and your customer's) time.

it won't necessarily be easy to figure out how each of your marketing efforts is changing perceptions -- this is, in fact, the holy grail as far as i'm concerned -- because they often act in concert and it's extremely difficult to control for the impact of one versus the others. but i think it's worth trying. it's only with this kind of insight that marketers can get beyond the old "column-inch" thinking and onto the things that really make a difference in attracting and retaining customers.

citizen reporting

2009-06-26T13:30:00.000-07:00

i wish i could take credit for the term "citizen reporting," but i actually saw it in this youtube blog post. a pretty interesting thing, this bit about apple's 3g iphone intro causing youtube mobile vid posts to increase so dramatically literally overnight.

there've been numerous examples of cr, mostly i think having to do with twitter and the tweets that people sent following the bombings in mumbai, the usair landing in the hudson and of course the
recent tweets on the unrest following elections in iran. the implications for crisis communications, i think, are unbelievably important.

what does "citizen reporting" mean for communications professionals?

1) your job is 24/7. i know, a big "duh." this was always the case, but now even moreso because "news" is going to be transmitted from the initial moments of an event, quite possibly even before your comms people in the location know what's happening. is it possible for twitter to send an actual alarm bell to your blackberry to wake you up in the middle of the night when something happens to your company in europe or asia? (tell all your developer friends there's srlsy big $ in an app for this).

2) your involvement is critical. maybe another big "duh" ... but i wonder how many comms folks have yet to incorporate social media into their formerly-well-designed crisis plans? if not you, someone needs to be designated to tweet into the stream with credible info. a situation where individuals are writing "there are hundreds of dead bodies here!" when in fact casualties may not yet have been confirmed can be incredibly damaging and work at cross-purposes to your crisis comms efforts. you need a private channel and a public channel, and need to ensure that you transfer the right info from one to the other as the situation unfolds.

3) your brand is on the line. companies' reputations -- and often their stock prices -- can sink dramatically with poor handling of a crisis. pre-social media, it was easier to manage the coverage, either by making phone calls to reporters in advance of bad news, or avoiding their calls when they checked to confirm. that's no longer an option. there are likely to be numerous sources, all of whom have an up-close-and-personal view of the situation, who may speak as experts simply because they're there and will write what they see. but as we all know, proximity is not the only (nor necessarily the most important) factor in determining the truth. a person who's unconscious may appear to be a fatality to someone who's not a medical professional...yet, i think the tweeter still is unlikely to rephrase as "there are hundreds of unconscious people here!"

some pr folks are looking down their noses at twitter, saying "it's a fad, it won't last, i don't need to worry about it"... but i wish they'd think again. if we could learn how to use this technology to get a step ahead of crisis situations and other similar events, it could be a real boon to our companies, and the public, both of whom deserve the best info and our best efforts to get it to them quickly.

sustainability marketing for sustainable business

2009-06-15T07:16:00.000-07:00

so last week was pretty hectic, as i spent the last 3 days in chicago at the Business Marketing Association's (BMA) national conference. drawing a sold-out crowd of about 400 people, the conference included presentations by a number of renowned speakers, including ralph oliva, david meerman scott, al and laura ries, google's sam sebastian, andy sernovitz, .... and yes, yours truly.

i was there to speak about sustainability marketing, a subject on which i've become a bit conversant, having spent 4 years digging into it at johnson controls, and earlier experience in the energy distribution and control business at square d (now groupe schneider). with the obama administration's focus on climate change and the need for an enlightened clean energy policy that advances the u.s. out of the dark ages (pun intended), it's clear that companies are going to have to take action in this space and that, at some point, they're going to be called upon to talk about what they're doing (or not doing) and why.

many are already taking advantage of the opportunities -- GE and IBM, particularly -- by focusing on smart grid, energy-efficient equipment, and energy-saving solutions for companies and communities. IBM's Matt Preschern delivered an excellent presentation describing the company's work -- it's an agenda, not a campaign -- designed to draw cities, corporations, ngos, academia and other stakeholder groups into the mix of figuring out how to solve large and complex challenges. the agenda isn't about selling stuff, but rather about thought leadership and establishing the company as a go-to resource for problem-solving assistance, no matter what the problems are. and oh, by the way, when they solve your problems they'll be doing it with IBM products and services. it's altruistic capitalism at its finest.

my presentation provided some info on the regulatory landscape, which will change dramatically with the passage in whatever form of the ACES (american clean energy and security act) bill, as well as some brief case studies of what some companies are doing to market their sustainability-related efforts. you can get the presentation here, and the audio narrative (soon to come) here.

the other thing about the BMA conference that was great was the enormous amount of content on social media, and its importance and impact. i personally wouldn't be comfortable betting on the life expectancy of facebook or twitter, per se, but i do believe that the utility -- the immediate info, connectedness, linkages -- these applications provide is not going away. now that we have it, we're not gonna want to be without it -- even though it is a giant time-suck. personally, i think the company that figures out how we get all that utility in just 10 minutes a day will be a giant winner. (if that's you working on it, pls let me know so i can invest now).

in my view, sustainability marketing and social media will coalesce, somehow, into a giant fireball of activity. though this is not a straight demographic thing, we do know that younger people, in general, are more attuned to sustainability, and also more attuned to social media. they're skeptical of traditional marketing and more willing to find the facts for themselves. they're interested in sharing their opinions and their stories, their muses and their values. so i think the company that figures out how to get that right will also be a giant winner (again, if that's you, call now for $).

one thing i learned from the fest is that blog comments matter. i have not been particularly concerned about the fact that my readers aren't commenting much on this blog, believing that either you're simply in agreement with everything i've been saying, or that you think i'm an idiot but don't want to embarrass me publicly. even if that's true, i encourage you now to cease lurking and become engaged in some type of dialogue -- with me, or with each other -- or ideally, both!

these pants are made for standing

2009-06-07T18:39:00.001-07:00

These boots are made for walking
and that's just what they'll do
one of these days these boots
are gonna walk all over you.
- Nancy Sinatra

i have not been able to get that stupid song out of my head for the last couple of days. here's why.

it all started when i purchased a pair of Issey Miyake pleated pants. i was planning a trip that involved a 3-hour plane ride from austin to new jersey, and the pants (if not the wearer) had to look good at the end of the ride. i figured they'd be comfortable, too.

now, i didn't know that issey miyake was into apparel. call me fashion-backward ... i guess somehow i'd missed that issue of instyle. but i've worn the cologne for years and love it, so i was willing to give the guy some brand largesse in an adjacent category. plus, they were on sale, which was good 'coz they're typically not ... shall we say... value-priced.

the pants are pleated in hundreds (i'm guessing) of tiny, 1/16" pleats, which is what gives them their unique look. pleats reportedly have been with us since the time of the egyptians, who apparently had enough free time on their hands to do this sort of thing when they weren't trying to get the philistines to look the other way. but i wasn't really thinking about this when i bought them. i needed a good-looking, good quality, comfortable, well-wearing pair of pants, and that's what i thought i was getting.

so i wore them on the trip, and it was all good. the pants held up fabulously well, even when my return flight was cancelled and forced me to go through cleveland to get to milwaukee. i have nothing in particular against cleveland, but suffice it to say that 5pm on a day that started at 4am, i was more interested in my pants coming off and being replaced by pajamas as quickly as possible.

it was only later, when i was assembling clothing for a trip to the dry cleaner, that i actually got a look at the pants' labels. ordinarily, i check the care instructions when i buy a garment, just to see whether or not i'll be putting my dry cleaners' kids through post-doc studies (their undergraduate work has already been well covered). but i was in a hurry at purchase time and didn't see this -- because i guarantee you, if i had, the pants would still be on a hanger in the store and i would be in the hospital recovering from whatever injury you get when you can't stop laughing hysterically.

here is what the tag says (and i could not make this up if i tried):

minimum machine wash
do not bleach
do not iron
do not dry clean
do not tumble dry

so i'm thinking ... well, ok, i have some hand-washing ahead of me. not the worst thing in the world. but wait, there's more!

in order to preserve the shape, please observe the following. pleats are easily marred by heat and pressure. avoid sitting and applying other types of pressure for long periods of time.

avoid sitting? they're pants! i can't tell you how much my sensibilities as a marketer are offended by this type of total disregard for product-in-use. it reminds me of when motorola in its early days made a cell phone where you had to press the "on" button to turn the phone off, or the kind of phone voicemail systems that are supposed to get you to a relevant contact more easily but have exactly the opposite effect. it's just plain silly... and annoying.

good product design, in my view, starts with ethnographic research so you can actually understand in a very specific way how your customer behaves and how the product is, or is not, likely to meet his/her needs and expectations. in an ideal world, you uncover some bit of something that enables you to create a product that offers surprise and delight, or at least one that doesn't work to offend your target.

i still can't get the tune out of my head, except now it goes:

These pants are made for standing
and that's just what they'll do
one of these days these pants
are gonna go to Goodwill, too.

When did "sales" become "business development?"

2009-06-04T16:17:00.000-07:00

when did "sales" become "business development?"

this was the question i asked a buddy recently (while i was clearly engrossed with other tasks besides working on this blog), and he had an interesting perspective, which is that these things are in fact not the same.

in his view, "business development" is a function which is responsible for garnering truly new, never-before-dealt-with, contacts for the organization. these contacts could be in an existing account, but they have never had anything to do with your company. they may not even know who your company is or what you do. but they may be excellent targets that could give you an order, if only they knew how great you are. "business development," therefore, is characterized by a significantly proactive approach, involving lots of research, networking, and potentially even cold-calling these prospects.

"sales," on the other hand, from his perspective is the function that deals with existing customers and being responsive to their needs. there can certainly be a proactive element to this work, as the very best salespeople know that the way to their customers' hearts is through helping them solve their problems, especially those problems that have nothing to do with buying the salesperson's product.

i follow the rationale, but i'm not sure i agree with it.

to me, it seems "business development" was a term invented by salespeople who somehow felt that there was no longer any honor -- or perhaps compensation -- in being a salesperson. i can't say i remember any "business development" managers in the first several companies i worked for in the 1980s. they were sales managers, account representatives, and the like (funny, i can't think of any title that actually had the word "customer" in it, although later i do think these folks started to put their customers' companies names in their titles, e.g., "Ford Account Representative," or "IBM Relationship Manager). and that, to me, made a great deal of sense ... or more sense, anyway, than does "business development."

why? because the emphasis in the former is on the customer ... when i carry my customer's name on my card, it's pretty clear where my focus is, or should be. but when my title suggests that i'm just about building my own business with my customer's money, everything else that my brand does, or tries to do, will have to overcome this hurdle.

i'm sure there are excellent BDMs who are such good relationship builders and preservers that the title doesn't get in the way, but i also believe there are plenty of good ol' salespeople who have managed to build their account revenues by reaching out to others whom they hadn't previously served.

anyway ... the important thing is that, whether you're a business development manager or a sales person, if you'd like to have a strong brand you need to be 110% focused on your customers...and generally, the rest will take care of itself. this should be obvious, but if you've ever been on the wrong end of a bad transaction, you know that it's one of the things that's simple, but not necessarily easy.

plain language

2009-05-18T18:14:00.000-07:00

so i've been thinking lately, amid all the grousing about obama's notre dame speech in which he didn't really say he was a pro-choice advocate, and people's lack of understanding of the word "pandemic," and a cool thing that i just saw today on rohit's blog .... it was time for a monica-style rant on the value of plain language.

it's true. a few posts ago, i was the one arguing for more attention to product naming, and now i'm the one arguing for less attention to language, especially if that means you're going to go out of your way to try to sanitize, spiff-ify (that's prounounced "spiff-if-eye," not "spiff-iffy") or otherwise take a perfectly good, simple, clear message and muck it up with words or phrases that sound like they were written by your pr department -- or worse, your lawyer.

look at the simple difference between a paragraph from GE and a paragraph from Apple talking about their technology innovations:

GE: Advanced technology – Model ES44C4 delivers sophisticated traction control technology with its patented Dynamic Weight Management System that continuously monitors traction at the axles and automatically adapts to maximize performance on heavy trains. This system – similar to traction control on an automobile – limits wheel slip at start up, on inclines and in adverse weather conditions, ensuring optimum performance and less wasted energy. In addition, this latest Evolution locomotive has a higher top speed than traditional DC-powered locomotives.

ok, well... i used to have to write about this kind of stuff and actually, this is not bad as far as B2B news releases are concerned. an analogy to traction controls in cars, which we all know and understand. features and benefits, differentiation... it's all here. everything they taught you in pr101.

now, Apple's: The iTunes Store is the world’s most popular online music, TV and movie store with a catalog of over 10 million songs, over 40,000 TV episodes, and over 5,000 movies including over 1,200 in stunning high definition video for rent. With Apple’s legendary ease of use, pioneering features such as iTunes Movie Rentals, integrated podcasting support, the ability to turn previously purchased tracks into complete albums at a reduced price, and seamless integration with iPod and iPhone, the iTunes Store is the best way for Mac and PC users to legally discover, purchase and download music and video online.

what's the difference? the same things are true as in GEs; there are features, advantages and benefits ... but additionally, apple's words give me a very clear sense of scale because there aren't just words -- there are numbers, too. GE's "maximizing performance" perhaps should have been made more specific to deliver this kind of scale -- e.g,., "22% more efficient," or instead of "optimum" and "less wasted energy," they could have really made me understand the magnitude of their offering by putting some quantitative detail behind it. plus "maximizing performance" just makes you think of various ED products, doesn't it?

the B2B people are screaming at the computer now, saying things that all start with "yabbit" ('yeah, but').

"yabbit, apple has a cool consumer product and GE's talking about a train."

"yabbit, GE's audience understands what they're saying and that's all that's important."

"yabbit, it's just a news release. GE talks differently on its website." (and they do, by the way.)

ok, i do fault apple for the use of the tech-speak "seamless integration," mostly because it's overly techy and also because i was among the first people to use that phrase commercially, and it pisses me off that i didn't do something more to ensure i got a royalty everytime someone else used it.

"yabbit".... indeed.

when all else fails, try puppy eyes....

2009-05-13T12:07:00.000-07:00

hi, folks .. it's me, willy the yellow lab, serving as your guest blogger today. my mom has been avoiding a ton of stuff and says she's too busy to bother with you, her loyal fans. i keep telling her seth godin and other marketing experts say this is a serious marketing error, and how can she ever expect to have more than 14 followers if this is how she behaves .... but now she's waving me off and telling me to get lost. i know that's impossible 'coz she put one of those damn GPS chips in my neck and now i can't even sneak out with my friends like a normal, self-respecting dog.

anyway, as you all know, my considerable expertise in marketing comes from watching hours of animal planet, and even more hours of sometimes good, sometimes bad, but always interesting human behavior. here are some things you may want to think about as you construct your next marketing program:

1) have a clear objective. and i don't mean something vague like "drive sales." to me, a clear objective is something very specific -- like, "get that piece of chicken shaped like a triangle."

2) have a clear strategy. a while back, my mom was pretty interested in a linkedin forum where some people didn't know the difference between objectives, strategies and tactics. to me (and her), strategies are pretty easy to discern from objectives and tactics. strategies are approaches, the general means by which objectives are accomplished. some people go right to tactics, which is a mistake because it doesn't allow you to fully consider all the alternatives that you have at your disposal when it comes to achievement of a goal. for example, in the case of the chicken triangle, my strategy is going to be to get her to give it to me willingly. there are a number of alternate approaches i could use, such as jumping up and nabbing it off the plate, or by creating a diversion ...by say, taking a leak on the sofa and subtly stealing the chicken while she races off to get the upholstery cleaner. those 2 latter strategies, however, are likely to get me a big doggy spanking, while the first approach is much easier and devoid of pain.

3) select appropriate tactics. now that i've decided on the "willing" strategy, i have to find specific actions that align. i have a huge arsenal of tools i can use, everything from double-barreled drool strands (my personal best: 8"!!) guaranteed to make a mess on the floor, to doing a little circle dance i know she loves ... or even telepathy, which hasn't yet actually worked but which i continue to pursue by staring fixedly at the chicken or whatever in hopes that my brain will actually compel movement of the food to my anxiously awaiting gullet. again, tactics like nabbing or barking or peeing are not well aligned with this strategy and so i won't pursue them. however ... puppy dog eyes are guaranteed to work in nearly every situation and in this case will be the primary, and quite possibly only, tactic required.

why puppy eyes work for dogs - and how they can work for you

here's the thing -- the most effective brand and marketing efforts are built on emotional connections, not on rational arguments. features, advantages and benefits -- all that stuff you learned about early in your career -- it's all still really important, but you've got to move on and understand this at a higher level. if FABs were all that mattered, all salt would be the same price (remember chemistry? all salt is NaCL. it's as much a commodity as any product i can think of, although my mom also likes to use toothpaste as an example.) next time you're at your local grocery, compare the price of morton's to the store brand.

anyway, i digress. the reason why puppy eyes work for dogs is that they inspire 2 very important emotions -- guilt and fear -- which most humans are completely inept at handling. when i fix her with that look, my mom feels guilty because she knows she blew off my walk today, yesterday or last october. it doesn't matter which date -- what matters is that she knows she doesn't do as much for me as she thinks she should (note, i didn't say as much as I think she should. i know i'm getting a pretty sweet deal, but that's for another post). the second emotion is fear --she's afraid that if she doesn't give me the chicken, i might eat something else outside that's not good for me and hurt myself. and then she'd have a giant vet bill, in addition to the guilt. not a good combo.

these emotions can work for you, too, especially if you're in cause marketing. i've seen this work brilliantly on my mom. when the local charities send their people around collecting door-to-door, she gives them money; when the people come collecting on a bitterly cold day, or in the rain, she gives them 2x whatever she usually gives them.

fear is a little trickier ... but still very effective. my mom has a friend who says fear is an essential element of ANY sale. the customer has to, deep down, somehow believe that whatever the other alternatives are aren't going to be as good, or deliver as much value, or be available under the same circumstances, as whatever it is you're offering. when mom finds our food on sale and isn't sure it'll still be available next time, woo wee! we get lots!!

so, when all else fails, try puppy eyes. (it works for me).

"when people get paid to do a thing...

2009-05-05T10:42:00.000-07:00

... you should pay them to do it." it's become a favorite motto of mine, having made all kinds of home improvement mistakes over the years.

there was the time i tried to fix the slow leak in the pipe under the kitchen sink, which resulted in water collecting in the crawl space underneath the house. of course, i didn't find that out until about 2 years later, when it was far too late to do anything other than call the guy i should have called the first time, and pay him about 10x what it would have cost if i HAD called him the first time.

then there was the other time when i sat on my sofa in the living room with a glass of wine after dinner and thought, "hey, i could paint this place in about 3 hours." it seemed like a good evening activity. three weeks later, after 3 - 4 hours of painting virtually every night, i was no longer removing hardware from the walls, deciding that i would just stick my finger in the paint can and draw around lighting fixtures, hinges, pictures, etc. that house also had a vaulted ceiling and i had only my god-given 5'0 of height and a 6'0" ladder. when i sold the place, i had to take the cost of repainting it out of the proceeds.

i mention all this as background to my latest excuse for ignoring you, dear readers, as my husband mike and i decided that we would stain and seal our 10' x 50' deck ourselves. it should be noted that the 50' length includes a post-and-rail fence, and that each of those silly rails has 4 sides. it also turns out, which i did not know in advance, that one has to apply stain/sealant in a certain way (i.e., with a brush ... or if you use a roller and or sprayer, you STILL have to use a brush, which is ridiculous but true).

after what seems like an eternity, we're about half-done, having managed to apply the stain to the deck and the insides of the rails and the stairs. unfortunately, like most objects in real life, the deck exists in 3 dimensions, and that means that the entire rear of the thing, including the back sides of the stupid aforementioned rails, is still bare-assed ugly pine. to be fair, i should point out that willy and hoover, from the beginning, knew this was an ill-conceived venture, and studiously avoided my attempts to attach brushes to their tails.

the quality of our work is ... um ... crappy. there are blotches, little circle marks where small drops of stain fell and solidified, places where we stopped and then started again that are darker than the rest of the boards, uneven finishes, etc. we're thinking about starting a new business, tentatively called "distance decking." our slogan would be: "it looks ok from far away." our target market would be people who don't really care what their decks look like up close -- so for example, sitcom characters, movie prop people, and the folks making brochures and videos for google earth. i realize it's a pretty niche market ... but i bet it's a niche that's somewhat under-served.

the point -- and as is sometimes the case, i do have one -- is that marketing, advertising and communications are fields in which professional people grow and develop their expertise. i've noted that often small businesses (and even large ones, on occasion) try to do this work themselves rather than paying people who know what they're doing. what they get in return is similar to our deck -- it looks ok from far away -- but upon closer inspection, doesn't have the impact or quality or effectiveness or ANYTHING, really, that the end product is supposed to have. it's just ... there, kind of like our deck, waiting for us to come out and look at it and wish we'd had the sense to hire a professional.

but the consequences for those businesses are somewhat more severe. why? because in the end, we'll sell this place (i hope!) and we might have to pay the new buyer something to get the deck fixed. the deck, by itself, is not serving as an attractant to potential buyers. but the business that relies on cheap, shoddy marketing to attract new customers or reinforce its value to existing ones does itself a disservice that can ultimately result in people ignoring it, or staying away, or taking advantage of a well-presented offer by a competitor. net net: do it right the first time!

susan boyle and kaytee suet

2009-04-23T14:21:00.000-07:00

unless you've been hiding under a giant rock for the last several days, you know about susan boyle and the close to 50 million downloads of the youtube video showcasing her performance on "Britain's Got Talent." she's been on larry king, she's been the subject of articles in the world's major newspapers, and certainly gotten her 15 minutes and more in the blogosphere, with more than 2700 posts a day last week.

most of the coverage that attempts to explain why the world is so taken with susan, i think, misses the mark. many of these stories flail into armchair psychoanalysis, such as peter bregman's: "Who among us does not move through life with the hidden sense, maybe even quiet desperation, that we are destined for more? That underneath our ordinary exterior lies an extraordinary soul? That given the right opportunity, the right stage, the right audience, we would shine as the stars we truly are?" or even the more straight-up commentaries about how an angelic voice emanating from a sort of frumpy exterior has unexpectedly provoked a debate about prejudice against the not so young and not so beautiful.

but i think the reason that we're captivated is much simpler, and it's actually the same reason that i am at this moment, in an equally odd turn of events, thrilled with Kaytee suet.

those of you who try to attract wild birds to your feeders know what i'm talking about. birds are notoriously fickle. you can put food out in the middle of winter when there's nothing else to eat, and if they don't like it, they won't eat it. (this concept is totally lost, by the way, on willy & hoover, who never met a foodstuff -- or even non-footstuffs -- they didn't like). anyway, we'd tried the gamut of designer-brand suets, some with cherries, or orange pieces, or nuts, or i don't know what else. they might as well have been laced with gold, and we'd sometimes spend upward of $6 or $8 on the stuff, only to have to dig it out of the stupid little box to try something else. so one day, out of spite, almost, we bought the kaytee product, which was about $1-something and -- thinking about susan here -- didn't really look the part, if you know what i mean.

but remarkably, the kaytee worked! along came the cardinals, bluejays, finches and the little blue buntings in droves, and they couldn't get enough of the stuff. i could not have been more ... and here's the point of this post ... more surprised and delighted. if you watch the entire clip of susan's performance, somewhere in the first minute or so, they cut to backstage where the field producers are, and one of them says to the camera, "you weren't expecting that, were you... no!," which is i think really what's driving the emotion around this.

the surprise comes from, i suppose, what some people see as the incongruity between her visage and her voice. i got over this a long time ago, however, when i first got a look at the album covers for rush, steely dan and some other incredible musicians who were not similarly gifted in looks. but then again, isn't this why even the cheapest concert tickets sometimes sell out? presumably, some people are there for the music, as well as (or even maybe for more than) the spectacle.

anyway, surprise and delight are absolutely key to customer engagement, retention and advocacy. good advertising and pr may get a horse to your bucket, but it won't keep him drinking, much less telling other horses about it. when we run into surprise and delight, 2 things happen: 1) we build an automatic positive relationship with the product/brand at that moment (not to say it can't be undone later, but that's for a different post); and 2) we are generally motivated to tell others about it, often in a highly proactive way. whether you're talking about susan or suet, the results are the same ... we need more of it, and quickly!

twitter for dogs

2009-04-18T06:51:00.000-07:00

Willy: Hi, this is willy. I will now attempt in 140 characters or less to have a conversation with my brother to illustrate the value of twitter.

Hoover: This is Hoover. Is it dinnertime yet?

Willy: Hoover has just succinctly shown us one of the key characteristics of twitter, which is the nature of the immediacy of the communication.

Hoover: Gimmedatfood. Gimmedatfood. Gimmedatfood.

Willy: He also clearly points out another interesting quality, which is the ability – nay, the necessity – of communicating in clear language.

Hoover: Huh?

Willy: This is why mom says some old school pr folks don’t like twitter – ‘coz they don’t like talking this way. saying coz instead of “because.”

Hoover: But that just saved you, like, 4 characters!

Willy: Right. And that’s pretty cool when you have to include the spaces in ur tweets. I HATE HAVING TO INCLUDE THE SPACES!

Hoover: That’s why I talk the way I do. Now, gimmedatfood!

Willy: Here’s the deal. Twitter is not some kind of fad. Dogs know this. We’ve been tweeting since the first wolf howled his way to domestication.

Hoover: I thought u just stole that blackberry from mom last week?

Willy: Shhhh, dogbreath. She thinks dad accidentally threw it out!

Hoover: So … I guess now u really have a reason to wrap this post up and GIMMEDATFOOD! I’m starving over here.

Willy: Think about it. When ur dog barks, whines, or just looks at u coz it’s time for eating, playing, or - other stuff - that’s like a tweet.

Hoover: I’m tweeting 2u about dinner but it’s not seeming to work very well?

Willy: Also, Twitter is about communities and connections, which every dog knows r key to the success of both the individual and the group.

Hoover: What I’d like to know is whether this individual and/or group is gonna get some chow anytime soon?

Willy: I’m talking about the future not just of social media, but all marketing. It’s weird, but people would rather trust strangers than experts.

Hoover: Look, I thought this was just about “what r u doing?”

Willy: Dude, that’s like so 6 mos ago. Twitter’s moved way byond that. Think about capabilities 4 crisis mgmt. 4 sales promotion. 4 flash mobs!

Hoover: I thought flash mobs were so 6 months ago?

Willy: Ok, but u get my point (or at least I hope our readers do). Get with the big T b4 its 2 late and your dog beats u2 the future.

Hoover: Whatever. I think marketers should get w twitter coz it’s fast, it’s authentic, and it’s the media of choice of millions. Can’t b ignored.

Willy: Who ru and what have you done with Hoover?

Hoover: Hey look! it’s dog food! Again! How lucky r we?! Let’s eat!!!

the marketing of anti-life

2009-04-14T18:23:00.000-07:00

apologies, all, for the gaping hole left in the blogosphere by the absence of monica-generated drivel over the last couple of weeks. i was officially on vacation... or, as i like to think of it ... the "anti-life." that's because the type of vacation i typically select, when given a choice, is the kind that involves basting in a delicious broth of one's own juices combined with SPF30 (anything over 30 is marketing) and the last dribbles of that umbrella drink that never quite made it to its proper and final destination.

i've been going to negril beach, located on the western tip of jamaica, for roughly the last 2 decades, because it provides a highly enjoyable and consistent brand experience which is mostly about that anti-life. the anti-life is, by definition, the opposite of real life (meaning my life, for the most part). for example, in real life, one generally must be prompt -- but in jamaica, everything runs on "jamaica time," which is anywhere between 5 minutes and 45 minutes late, and if you're on time for something, you look (and feel) silly. in real life, one generally only sings in public if one is either a performer, or silly enough to think that s/he is as good as a performer. but in jamaica, everybody sings, pretty much about everything, and they don't seem to care whether anyone's listening (and somehow, even non-performer jamaicans sound much better than non-perfomer americans, though i've never been able to figure out why this is so). and in real life, one finds it generally most productive to be awake during the day and asleep at night ... but in jamaica this portion of the time-space continuum is stood on its beautifully tanned head, and the place doesn't even really get going until midnight or so.

when i first started vacationing there, they didn't have either telephones or tv sets in the rooms (remember, it was 1989 and the internet was not even a twinkle in al gore's eye) and that was just fine by me, since, in real life, i was on the phone and paying attention to the television pretty much all day. a mcpaper cost $5 (and that was before they were doing the special weekend editions). if you wanted to know something about what was going on in the u.s., the best way was to locate someone who'd just arrived and ask what the headlines were in the last day or so. like playing "telephone," the children's game, the news was not always told in the most accurate fashion ... but then again, when one has had enough umbrella drinks, sometimes one is willing to make allowances for that.

but i thought (and still think) the oddest thing is that, rather than marketing all this as "anti-life," which was the whole reason i -- and others, too, i think -- were going there, they were busy trying to promote the experience for its "real life" qualities... the great beachfront, the great food, the great hotel amenities, etc. and there's no doubt those things were (and are) great .... but the truth is, those things are pretty much the same in ANY vacation place. my point -- and i do have one, trust me -- is that the things which were truly the best and most meaningful differentiators of the experience were ignored in favor of some things that were not really differentiators at all. i hate to admit i'd ever pay more for anything, but truth is, if they'd proclaimed something like: "come to jamaica, where you'll never hear a ringing telephone," i would have been inclined to spend twice the money to go there.

remember jolt cola? as i recall, this product evolved in the mid-80s at a time when diet and caffeine-free drinks were all the rage. rather than take on coke and pepsi, wet planet beverages brought out jolt with 2x the caffeine and 2x the sugar of regular soda -- and charged more for it!

net net: the best brands fight carefully on chosen turf. they don't necessarily seek to appeal to everyone -- in fact, it's hard to be a strong brand with a large, diffuse target because you end up trying to be everything to everybody.... which means, in the end, you're often nothing to nobody. if what you're marketing is, in some ways, inferior to your competitors, you're better off figuring out how those shortcomings might be turned into unique advantages vs. attempting to come-from-behind in the areas where others are already ahead.

Advertising in a downtown

2009-04-01T20:06:00.000-07:00

i'd like to congratulate the fine marketing and communications folks at Emerson for bucking the trend of companies cutting their advertising and marketing budgets in a kneejerk reaction to the economic meltdown. the company recently announced the next phase of its corporate advertising campaign, called "It's Never Been Done Before."

henry ford -- who himself probably knew a thing or two about downturns -- made famous the following: "A man who stops advertising to save money is like a man who stops a clock to save time."

let's think about this a minute and see if together we can figure out a couple of key reasons why advertising in a downturn makes tremendous sense. even a 5th grader can get this (not that i'm smarter than one). so you play the moderator, and i'll play the elementary school kid:

you: are you more likely to notice a company's advertising when it has a lot of competition or when it's out there more or less by itself?

me or a 5th grader: well, that depends on whether it's an ambercrombie & fitch ad, which i'm going to notice no matter how many other ads are out there because they have the cutest guys in them and then i'm going to insist that my mom buy me a a&f $100 t-shirt that's ripped and stained and hope she won't go all crazy on me in the store... but sure, i'm more likely to notice an ad that's not fighting with hundreds of others for my attention.

you: which do you think would be less expensive ... advertising when there are a lot of other companies that want to run ads, or when the media outlets don't have a lot of business coming in and might be a little more desperate?

me or a 5th grader: i think it's like getting my allowance -- it's always easier to hit the 'rents up for more when they need something from me, like, to run and get the plunger from the basement before the stopped-up toilet turns their bathroom into a hazmat site. that was worth an extra $50 the other day, and i swear, i probably left money on the table. next time i oughtta ask for $100. so i'd say, you can probably get a better deal when they're desperate.

you: what do you think is the likely result of advertising when your competitors aren't, and spending less money on it than you would otherwise to get the same, or better, results?

me or a 5th grader: uh... well... i guess that result would be ....good?

here's my question: how could it possibly be bad?

emerson gets this simple idea. i personally think the creative could be a little snappier (who hasn't heard all this "what you never thought possible" stuff before? weren't we all around for ibm and intel's campaigns in the 80s, motorola and at&t in the 90s, etc.?) but i give them a bunch credit for simply putting the work on the street. print, online, tv, about $10M in total, i think. and these folks are not the size of GE, nor are they as cash-flush as IBM or Cisco, and they've only been at this brand thing about 7 years. but it seems they clearly get it.

we all likely would say that stopping a clock to save time is just plain silly. everyone knows that won't work. stopping advertising to save money is equally silly, because that also doesn't work. it's been proven in numerous studies (one of the best by mcgraw-hill) that companies which advertise during a downtown are able to drive revenue and margin increases over their competitors' in the recovery. yet, many business leaders still seem to think that driving a stake in their company's heart while its legs are being chained is a wise response to the situation.

i don't argue that, especially for smaller businesses, it can be a tough choice between funding advertising and marketing, and people. workforce reductions are nobody's favorite. but i think we need to make the point to employees that if the company doesn't work to promote and sustain its brand(s) during the tough times, it will only result in having to let more people go in the future. better to bit the bullet now, i think, and take advantage of the open field and favorable media pricing available.

a rose by any other name

2009-03-24T17:52:00.000-07:00

"a rose by any other name would smell as sweet," wrote the great bard in the late 1500s, when presumably the art and science of choosing names for companies and products was only slightly less well understood than it is today.

in that play, juliet says:

'Tis but thy name that is my enemy; Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot, Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part Belonging to a man. O, be some other name! What's in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet; So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd, Retain that dear perfection which he owes Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name, And for that name which is no part of thee Take all myself.

ah, lovely juliet. if only she had been around for the naming of the Toyota Venza. i suspect there were many parts of men (and quite possibly women, too) being flung around in that naming discussion.

the bloggers actually like the car, which appears to be what one would expect from a toyota wagon, but a little spiffier. they go on a bit about how clearly the car's exterior design was intended to make the vehicle look "muscular" -- big tires, big metal grille, etc. but a lot of the visitor commentary is about how feminine and dare i say, girly, they think "venza" is, as a name. some of those commenters also point out that everyone knows in more than 50% of vehicle purchases, women either make the selection or highly influence the decision.

but apparently, these folks have not checked out their latin primers. "veno, "ven" and other similar word parts are derived from the latin venenum, meaning "poison." and "veni," as in "veni, vedi, vici,", means "come." in fact, in the french, the verb "come" (as in "come here") is venez.

now, the folks to whom i lovingly refer as the literalist nation would say something, ah... literal ... about this, like "oh, so what we're saying is we want them to come to the car and get poisoned?" as a reason for picking a different moniker. but the truth is, people make all kinds of crazy associations to names, whether or not they speak latin or french or tagalog. i'd bet there are a fair number of folks who would say "venza" reminds them of "pizza," as much as anything else. (and when you have to figure out where to take a family of 5 for an affordable dinner, presumably in your venza, the pizza place is a good option.)

those associations are built over time from experiences, a few of which are shared with the rest of the world, but the large portion of which are uniquely individualized. which is why choosing good names is such a difficult task, and why companies and brands should make sure they take this activity seriously. it's not something for employees to do as an internal communications activity, nor for senior executives to decide in an ops review. the marketing folks at toyota are not pikers, and i would wager they vetted this name pretty carefully with the target to ensure, even if it wasn't a lovefest, that there weren't any highly negative associations generated by the name.

many folks tell the "funny story" of the chevy nova reportedly bombing in spanish-speaking markets because "nova" in spanish translates into "doesn't go" (that story, by the way, is false -- see this snopes article for an excellent accounting of the truth about the nova name) as an example of bad naming. but the fact that most don't know the story isn't true just provides more evidence of how people can come to believe things without evidence. as someone who thinks of herself as a reasonably intelligent person, i have trouble with this idea... but as a marketer, i know for a fact it's real.

which is why, when i need a vehicle that'll be the next dog taxi for willy and hoover, i'll probably consider the venza. toyota, in fact, is now targeting dog owners for the venza. wired even wrote a story about this, calling out the strategy. and the venza's even been named the "top car for dogs" by dogtime.com and their dog reviewer, lucky (that might be him, in the photo on left). maybe we can get a play date together...

of taglines and toilet paper

2009-03-19T19:47:00.000-07:00

so one of my current tv faves -- and there are not many -- is Trust Me, the new TNT series featuring mason (eric mccormack) and conner (tom cavanaugh), who work for a chicago-based advertising agency. it's full of characters that i'm sure most people think are exaggerations but which, based on my experience, are dead-on accurate.

in the show's pilot, there's a discussion about taglines, which are the pithy little slogans that usually accompany an ad or brand campaign ... such as, say, "live like you mean it." conner tells mason they don't need a tagline for a campaign they're working on; mason says they do. when conner says, "nobody remembers those stupid lines anyway," mason's response is: “Just do it. Think different. Kills bugs dead. When you care enough to send the very best. This Bud’s for you. We try harder. The ultimate driving machine. Uh oh Spaghetti-os.”

actually, i think both characters are right. most of the time, companies don't need a tagline ... but the ones who develop great lines and invest in them effectively over time can leverage those ideas to gain significant competitive advantage.

one of the comments on my recent post re wisconsin and its tagline debacle suggested that: "[most people] view a state slogan about the way they would view toilet paper...when you need it, you use whatever's handy, and you don't particularly care about the color, they ply, the softness, or the texture."

and i suppose that's true, except that if we were to examine the toilet paper (the unused portion, that is) in the homes of those people, we'd find... what? charmin. scott tissue. cottonelle. northern. and sure, some store/generic brands, which i assume are resting comfortably in the bathrooms of the commenter. a wall st journal story from last fall points out that poor economic conditions are operating to increase sales of store brands as consumers look for easy ways to save money, but it seems people are more willing to scrimp on napkins and paper towels, and "toilet paper is holding up best."

the point is, a good tagline can help to solidify the emotional connection that all great brands have with their consumers. in "just do it," nike expressed the feeling that each of us has in our body somewhere, way down underneath the cheeseburger-and-fries excesses, an athlete, capable of physical excellence. we just have to get off the couch, which nike is happy to help us do, so long as we have $65 for a t-shirt (shirt = $5; nike logo = $60).

why do we have $65 for a nike shirt as opposed to $5 for the exact same cotton T from wal-mart? i suppose because we've come to believe that we somehow won't be able to "just do it" as well with walmart. they, after all, are about helping us save money so we can live better. i wonder if they thought that we'd be taking all that saved coin and spending it on nike stuff elsewhere???

great taglines can find their way into popular culture in a way that mission statements, value propositions and corporate-speak just can't. this may be reason enough to have one, although it's not an activity for the faint of heart (or pocketbook). but when you consider the impact on your target's propensity to purchase, the rationale is there. it's true nike spends a boatload on advertising ... but they make significantly greater money by selling products carrying the swoosh.

2009-03-17T18:00:00.000-07:00

o my, my.

that's about all i can say in summing up this week's coverage to date of the giant fray that is wisconsin's effort to re-brand itself.

it all started on monday, with our local journal-sentinel detailing the gov's intro of the new identity at the governor's conference on tourism in la crosse. the people quoted all said brand-launch-y type things, which is what one would expect.

it did not take a nanosecond, however, for the legion of you-gotta-be-kidding-me to get itself in gear, and in the last 18 hours there's been an AP story and nearly 3,000 clicks on the fark.com page dedicated to making fun of the new slogan. some of those erudite entries:

Dude, Yer Gettin' A Dells

Now with More Appleton than Perfect Strangers

So Awesome, Even Brett Favre Came Here

No, not near Chicago. No, that's Michigan. No, that's Minnesota.

Wisconsin: Home of the Frozen Lake DUI

Wisconsin: Eat Cheese or Die

Give Me Bratwurst or Give Me Death

Live Like A Fatty

Wisconsin: Making your liver cry for 161 years

You Moo's sure do know how to party!!!!

At Least We're Not Canadians (or Minnesotans)

Drink Like There's No Tomorrow

and one of my personal favorites... It's The One Shaped Like An Oven Mitt.

followed by a raft of riffs on the "... like you mean it," including "tax like you mean it," "drink like you mean it," and the like, coupled with modifications to the artwork including the cartwheeling figure doing a kegstand and having cash fall out of his pockets, respectively.

i think quite possibly my favorite quote comes from the california dietician who apparently has authored a book using the phrase and went off to the ap reporter about the fact that wisconsin is not going to get a federal trademark. that's so cute. the phrase is so hackneyed that seeking trademark protection would be ridiculous, even if the classes of use between cookbooks and tourism were even close to being confused with one another. of course, here in wisconsin i suppose that IS debatable given so much of the state's connection to beer, cheese and sausage.

in today's story, the state's brand manager took the equally expected approach when these kinds of things happen, which is to say words to the effect of, "__ you very much for your opinion, but we think it communicates effectively. everyone is always going to have a different opinion about such things." she is, of course, right about this last bit. but i really have no idea about the communication effectiveness thing -- and if she did, why didn't she put some data out there to back it up???

the stories talk about the fact that they vetted the tagline for legal purposes, but never about whether the tag was tested with the intended targets... presumably tourists and businesses in other states. which means, candidly, that ALL opinions expressed thus far -- including my own -- are horsehockey. this is what brand manager lady should have said. it wouldn't have kept the farkers from going after it (although if i were her, i would've farked them back with the research until they packed up their puns and went sulking off to wherever farkers go when they've been dissed).

ladies and gentlemen, if you take nothing else away from this blog's collection of drivel, i hope you will at least remember monica's golden rule, which appears on a piece of paper i once shot at while at a gun range. my performance was not too bad that day -- out of 15 rounds, i nailed 6 or 8 pretty much in the center, and the rest fairly close-in. i don't keep that memento to impress people with my shooting skills -- i keep it to remind them, and myself, that we are not the target of everything we see. data, data, data (and the insight one should be able to get from it) is key to making sure this kind of thing doesn't happen. hopefully the state will figure this out and give the next salvo in the campaign a little more of a chance,

in the meantime, tho, i'll be practicing my cartwheels like i mean it.

Willy's Guest Blog #2

2009-03-16T19:05:00.001-07:00

hi, everyone. it's me, willy! i know you all have missed me since my original post. so i thought i'd update you on what's going on in my life.

first of all, i'm taking a cue from my mom and using a photo that is lovely but not ... ah, shall we say, nowsville? and i'm a dog! that means i'm 7 years older than something, sometime. i forget exactly what since i've been multiple 7s and early doggie forgetfulness is beginning to creep in. but that's ok coz my mom can't remember anything either and it hasn't seemed to make much of a difference. except occasionally she forgets to feed us and i have to pull a cujo to get her to wake the hell up.

how does this relate to marketing? well, certainly good marketing has to be memorable so people feel like they've seen whatever it is before and therefore it must be good. like, when i go to PetSmart, there's this one shelf that i really like. it has rawhide stuff on it and i'm not allowed to have rawhide ever since i ate some when i was a puppy and my mom had to spend the entire weekend outside with me and my intestines... but believe me, i'm buying whatever these people are selling. i can imagine that lovely scent in my doggie dreams! if i ever bust outta this joint, that's the first place i'm headed.

what else. well, you know, it's march in wisconsin and that means ... it's still cold, and we're not putting the stupid doggie boots away for another 2 months. shoot, i'll bet we get another snowfall. that's really hoover's thing more than mine; i'm ready to be a california canine anytime. and take those stinking boots (literally!) back to PetSmart where they belong.

Ameriprise -- the trilogy is complete!

2009-03-12T15:03:00.000-07:00

as promised, here is the update on the Ameriprise saga:

so the very nice and highly competent customer service person returns my call and we walk through the process of getting accounts set up on their website. i can't log in because i've forgotten my stupid username and password. i'm thinking i should probably just use "stupid" as a username and whatever the numbers are for "stupid" as a password, and then i'd have no trouble remembering them.

anyway, rather than transferring me to some call center in a basement in minneapolis or mumbai, she puts me on hold for a very short interval, and comes back on the line with an IT person who gets the UI/PW situation resolved in the nanosecond it requires to hit a key (which should also be marked "stupid" on her keyboard, so people like me can be more expeditiously handled). then, in a curious display of IT-hijinks, the card account which has been the subject of so much consternation and blogging is all of a sudden resting comfortably on the page, minding its own business, and looking like it's been there all along. i know this isn't the case, and tell them so, and they calmly agree with me even though i can tell by their voices that they think i'm crazy.

i don't care, though, because i am the customer and i have been helped!!! it's silly to think that customer service problems are good for brands, but i will say that sometimes solving a problem gives a brand an added boost it wouldn't have gotten if it had simply performed acceptably well all along. and now, i'm going to tell my 4 followers and anybody else who's seeing this post (given the Ameriprise experience, i now make room for that possibility) about how great Ameriprise is, when i might not have gone out of my way to do that otherwise, because these kinds of great brand UX experiences are, in truth, pretty rare and when people like me find them we tend to talk about them.

i'm sure that Ameriprise, given a normal market, would rather have their clients recommending them for other reasons (e.g., growth, stability, investment performance, etc.) -- and who wouldn't agree that "they made me a ton of money!" sounds a bit more compelling than "they solved my card website problem!" -- but it's a crazy world out there and beggars can't be choosers. small brand victories in the short term can help win the war in the long run.

Ameriprise, thanks for restoring my faith in your brand. we're gonna know each other for a long time.

Ameriprise Part 2, and 3, and the illusion of control

2009-03-11T12:19:00.000-07:00

when you're a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail. and i admit it....i am, most often, the nail, and these posts are written from a very nail-oriented perspective. which is just my way of saying, "hey, hello... i'm your target and you, Mr. or Ms. Marketing Genius, are not really hitting me on the head or even striking the broad patch of drywall in my vicinity."

occasionally (much less occasionally, lately), i am the hammer and this allows me to recognize the good work of other hammers. so here's what's happened in the ameriprise saga (see my earlier post, below, for the start of the story.)

so the day after i wrote that post, i come home to a phone message from a lovely lady from ameriprise, who says, among other things, "we saw your blog." and i'm like, WHAT? no, that's impossible. i only have 4 followers and 2 of them are dogs. i share a maiden name with the third and my bed with the 4th. but sure enough she had seen the post and knew all about the poor customer service and left her phone number and said she would help me AND the other gal who was apparently in need of some instruction on the company's products and services.

i don't know whether i was more thrilled at the fact that i'm surfacing on amerprise's marketing comms screen as some kinda person of influence, or that they just wanted to fix the brand UX... but in either case, i was in fact thrilled and am using this opportunity to give big snaps to ameriprise for getting it right (well, i'm assuming they will. we've been playing phone tag, which is by no means a situation entirely under their control. so stay tuned for amerprise Part 3, where i will report faithfully on what happened and either send you flying in droves to seek financial nirvana from them, or not.)

speaking of control ... i was having lunch with a couple of folks from 2 fine milwaukee-based communications shops in pr and design, and we were in general agreement that control is not all it's cracked up to be. the design house had just been notified that their work has garnered some awards, and i thought it was a pretty interesting circumstance that those award-winning items are the ones where the client did not get out his/her pointy finger and insist that the type be in a certain color or font, that the images be cropped a certain way, or make any other stupid pronouncement that should without doubt be left up to someone who went to design school (or could have). on the pr side, the same was true -- at the time of the interview, the client had not been convinced the story was a great placement, but gave the agency the benefit of the doubt and in the end it turned out to be a terrific score.

i think really we should stop believing in "control" as a way of getting what we actually want, and instead favor "guidance," which enables agencies and other outside service partners to do more and better work, faster, more easily, and with greater value while still in the end providing us with deliverables that meet our needs. sometimes this means paying for things you end up not wanting -- but i think the true cost of that is significantly less than the benefit of getting something great you didn't know you needed.

Brand UX

2009-03-03T13:44:00.000-08:00

i had a very interesting conversation today with a very smart guy named dick bondy, a fellow who has probably forgotten more than i'll ever know about brands and marketing. dick is consulting now and is carving out a pretty interesting niche for himself in the area of corporate brand launches.

these events, known in the trade generally as "these @#$%^!& events," due to the fact that nobody really knows what they're supposed to be or how they're supposed to work, and as a result most of us who have done them usually just devise our own programs and hope for the best, or at least, the absence of disaster. ameriprise is an example of a company that did a fabulous job on its launch event, helped by my very good friends at lippincott, when they transitioned from american express to their new moniker.

but in my view, it's not all sweetness and light for the ameriprise brand at the moment. apart from being tarred with the same brush that's blackening the image of all financial services companies, i think they have what i call a brand ux (user experience) problem.

i happen to be an ameriprise customer, having been a client of american express financial services for many years. i've had the same advisor for the last 14 years, and she's fabulous (note, that's not to say i'm doing better in the market than anyone else whose holdings are in the tank). but she is extremely bright, extremely responsive, and i'm quite sure she does a better job at managing my money than i could do on my own.

one of the services she recommended recently was that my husband and i take advantage of the Ameriprise Achiever's Circle credit card, which has no annual fee if you keep a certain level of assets in Ameriprise accounts. i called, spoke to an equally fabulous customer service rep on the phone, and we ordered up the cards. and they came in a lovely little folder with all the features of the card, etc., and at this point i would say my ameriprise user experience was completely intact -- they've suggested to me a brand promise of intelligence, capability and great service, and they had delivered completely on it.

but then... i wanted to set up the card online so i could see transactions, balances, etc., so i went to their website (the intelligent thing, in my view) but couldn't find anyplace where it talked about the card, other than to sell you on signing up for it. so i called the number on the card, and got the web address, http://www.servicemycard.com/, and learned that barclays is the card servicer.

ok, i guess i'm all right with that - strong brands can align with other strong brands and not defeat their value propositions - but it would've been nice if somewhere along the way they'd told me so.

so i begin the laborious process of setting up the card. pick a username. password. photo. phrase. enter your mother's maiden name. the first school you attended (by this time, i'm getting a bit ornery, but dealing with it). now enter your address, telephone, employer, blah blah blah.... and now i'm thinking stuff like "does ameriprise really know what the hell's going on here?" and then finally i get to hit the "go" button and .... it doesn't work.

like an idiot, i try the whole process again (isn't it funny how we've become conditioned to thinking that somehow it's OUR fault and not the website's?). and again, it doesn't work. by this time, i am livid.

i call the number again and tell a not-so-fabulous phone rep the problem. she puts me on hold for an hour -- ok, it was probably 3 minutes but it felt like a hour--and then she says "your financial office has to set it up for you."

me: "financial office? i don't have a financial office. i have an advisor. do you mean my advisor has to set this up?"

her: "your financial office has to set it up for you."

me: "I DON'T HAVE A FINANCIAL OFFICE." (i probably was speaking in all capital letters by this time.)

her: i don't know anything about that. it says here you have to have your financial office set it up for you."

i hung up the phone and chalked it up to material for a good blog post.

this is why brand UX is so, so important. brand is not about a great logo -- it's about a great company, and products, services, and customer interaction that are completely consistent with that greatness. it wouldn't have been so bad, arguably, if i wasn't thrilled with the rest of the ameriprise delivery -- then i would've expected mediocre performance on the credit card thing, and my expectations would have been fulfilled. but they set themselves up to fail on this one, and i can only hope they figure it out soon... before i, and others like me, decide to go elsewhere.

bagels don't get it back

2009-02-27T18:21:00.000-08:00

it's funny how people think food is the universal "fixer."

now, i myself am a big fan of food, generally speaking, and probably enjoy a little too much of it on a too-frequent basis. this is why, though willy & hoover would be ecstatic to have me working from home, i must leave my house for minimally 8 hours every day. otherwise, i would be spending 6 of them in, on my way to be in, or thinking about what's in... the refrigerator.

i would eventually become so large that i would be unable to hoist myself from the couch, but i'm quite certain i would still be able to crawl, slide or drag myself across the floor to have yet another grazing session. how do i know this? a few years ago, i had to have surgery on both feet at the same time, and was, effectively, unable to hoist myself from the couch. didn't lose a pound, though.

anyway, food as fixer sometimes occupies an interesting position in the efforts of companies and people to right past wrongs or convince you of something that may in fact not be true.

for example, you'll see a restaurant have a health department issue, and then 2 months later they're open again, and giving away free apps as a way to entice diners to return (shame on you if you believe the rats are really gone for good). or you'll see a boutique that had horribly overpriced things have a "special sales event!", and they'll have snacks and drinks to lure you in to see marked-down things which are still ridiculously expensive... but now you've chowed down on the canapes and slugged back the wine and feel guilty that you're taking advantage of the store if you don't buy something. or, my personal favorite ... someone mistreats or offends you and later brings you bagels or cookies as a "peace offering" to convince you that he/she isn't such a bad guy/gal after all.

what a bunch of horse hockey this sort of thing is! it's bad practice on at least 3 fronts: 1) it's dishonest because it's not well-intentioned; 2) it's stupid because it presumes the recipient is not smart enough to see through the charade; and 3) it's unncessary because people are not going to believe you anyway.

net net -- bagels don't get it back for you. people may eat them, but ultimately it's unlikely that they're going to change their minds. if you want to have a strong brand, you have to behave with integrity -- the first time, and every time, you engage with people whom you wish to be loyal to you over the long run.

the doghouse

2009-02-21T16:36:00.001-08:00

i'm officially in the doghouse with willy & hoover today, for not letting them go outside in what i SO DESPERATELY HOPE will be the last snowfall of the year. (this photo is from last year). that of course does not mean i get to hang up my parka -- have to wear that until at least late may to avoid being below my admittedly somewhat narrow acceptable temperature range of 70 - 71 degrees.

anyway, it caused me to remember that recently someone mentioned that i'd not cited j.c. penney's doghouse campaign in my "faves" post from a couple of weeks ago. i can't believe i forgot to include it, because it is truly incredible marketing genius at work.

Multiple reasons why it's great:

1) it's intelligent without being too highbrow. this is the difference, i think, between, say, GEICO's gekko spots -- which are truly funny but i think potentially a little too upscale for the mass audience they're seeking. i suppose they're trying to balance these out with the caveman spots, which are terrible, and so if that's their strategy, i'd say it's not quite sound. besides, they're giving up a ton of recognition and ability to make either campaign better by splitting media investment between the two. doghouse nails a universal human truth -- which comes across no better than in my favorite line, "not a big fan of that look" -- that couples have experienced since ... well, caveman times.

2) it's a story that demands attention. the direction on this piece is fabulous and it's impossible to stop watching it, even if you've seen it multiple times. in fact, each time i see it, i see (or hear) something i didn't notice in the previous 1027 viewings (1028 if you count the one i had to do before writing this post). i've listened to the audio track by itself because there is some really funny stuff going on in the background which you can miss if you're watching the vid.

3) it's got opportunities for involvement. penney's has continued to improve the site, including a much easier way to put people in the doghouse (via a link to facebook), photos of them, and those who've been released, and links thru to material on their diamond offering and jewlery services. as well as the original vid that started it all.
i personally think they oughtta figure out a way to update their youtube viewership in realtime -- more than a million views since 11/21. that's some serious traffic.

yes, it's too bad that more of those folks didn't run right out to penney's and buy diamonds in december -- sales were down 10% for the quarter, profits down 50%. ouch! JCP looks just like any other retail stock right now, or for that matter, any kind of stock at all. but we all know that brand building isn't for this quarter, or even the quarter down the road ... it's for 3 to 5 years from now, and will require a lot of continued investment and care in the meantime. i hope penney's keeps it up, though, coz as soon as i have a couple extra dollars, i'll be heading in their direction.

musings on a cool video

2009-02-19T16:54:00.000-08:00

i happened to be at the ibm website today, and came across this video, "start at IBM," which is pretty cool. they have jump-cut a kazillion interesting images in sequence and crafted a piece of creative which in my view says alot more with this visual style than the words and music convey ... though the words and music are quite good, too.

whoever put this vid together, and whoever at IBM had the vision to make it something different than the typical "hey, let's show our employees saying great things about us" video, deserves some snaps. now, i myself have commissioned the aforementioned style of careers video, and it is lovely in that the employees are quite earnest and compelling and say the things we wanted them to say... and that's the problem. everyone who watches it will know the employees are saying the things we wanted them to say, or we would never have allowed it up on our website. so automatically there's a certain lack of authenticity, because you know while these people might have said these things on their own, they probably would've said some other things, too, and those comments aren't there. like, everything that's after the word "but..."

"yeah, this is a cool place, but ... they work us like dogs" (NB: willy & hoover on this topic sometime in a future post.)

"i love it here, but ... i really wish my big-mouthed cubemate would just SHUT UP! i can't hear myself think!

"the pay is fabulous... but yo have to be willing to brownnose the folks at the top."

so, the IBM piece gets past all of that by simply showing us people in motion. are all these people and places actually at IBM? i dunno, but i guess i give them the benefit of the doubt on that. are all these people happy? i dunno that either, but i'm not called upon to think too much about that because they're not challenging me to question the veracity of the employees' statements. i'm just letting a bunch of pictures and words and music wash over me and create the sense of a company in constant motion. my only gripe is that the nature of that motion is jerky and not fluid, which if you take this to an abstract level, it might mean that you would be working with jerks who don't drink. and that would be bad.

also, i wonder about the clean room shots -- how'd they get the camera/gear in there? they shoulda dressed it up in a little white coat and shower cap, too ... would've added an element of humor that might have made the piece a little less sterile. but on the whole, it worked for me.

linked in, facebook, twitter, and being social - as told by hoover levy

2009-02-18T16:13:00.000-08:00

hi, hello, hey, everyone! hey! hey! hey! gimme that toy! gimmee! it's me, hoover. i'm the black dog in the levy household and i'm easily the most social being in the family, as well as having a pretty bad case of ADD. or maybe because of that, i dunno. squirrels! squirrels! oh, how i love squirrels!

anyway, my mom does a pretty good fake, but there's no doubt my dad and my brother willy and that stupid cat are socially backwards and don't even really like talking to people, which is why you'd think that they would be head over tail on these social media tools. but they're not. I'D use them, for sure, if i didn't have these giant paddle feet for paws.

the trouble with social media is, well ... it's addictive. when you're a dog, you can afford to be addicted to things because you know your parents are gonna buy you another one of whatever that is, except if it's, like, an armani loafer or a tin of cajun spice or pine-scented wax candle or 10 lb butternut squash or tube of superglue. (all of those things are extremely tasty, by the way, except for the superglue, which is a bit chewy and difficult on the gums). but when you're a person, it can be bad to be addicted to things -- especially things that require a lot of money or time. i'm a dog, so i don't really understand what "time is money" means, but my mom keeps saying it to me, especially when i'm looking for that perfect spot. it's just like for you humans -- placement is important and i don't like to be rushed.

market-ing

2009-02-17T19:36:00.000-08:00

so yesterday i was contemplating the whole president's day thing, and was struck by the idea that there really is no true "market" for these types of occasions and other hallmark-induced holidays. (for my international readers, these are sort of like the bank holidays in germany, which occur, it seems, about once every 2 seconds, especially in the summertime or octoberfest season).

let's think about "markets," shall we? tom peters, in the original in search of excellence, which was a book in search of an audience until tom went out on a speaking tour and was so compelling in person that people bought the book in droves, said something to the effect of:

"the problem with 'marketers' is that what they really like to do is to play with numbers and draw nice charts, and they're really not concerned with listening to what customers really want, or think they want.... the truth is, a market never bought anything. people buy things."

and so, relative to my comments the other day about the people who are involved in hallmark holidays -- which people are in fact the market? the people who are presidents? or grandmothers? or secretaries? or are they the people who are buying the cards for these people? and who are those buyers? clearly, in the case of the latter 2 examples, we know that of course you're going to spring for a card for grandma on grandma's day lest you be boxed about the head and shoulders by she who bore you, or he who had to stand there while she bore you. and secretaries -- or to be entirely pc -- "assistants" -- well, that's obvious too. if you want those files, or your phone calls, or your calendar with the correct appointments vs. those with people who don't exist ... you'll come up not only with a beautiful, expressive card... but the flowers or gift cert as well.

but... presidents? is there anyone buying anything for anyone on this day (except for perhaps the $787B gift of the american people to themselves and the world? not to minimize that, by the way. some of my best friends are republicans and they think, naturally, that the stimulus is stimulousy, but i disagree. in fact, i think it's the equivalent of a giant traffic jam, involving, like 6 billion people, all of whom are out in the streets just sitting there and nobody's moving. just think... what if everyone started to move? all at the same time? in some kind of orderly manner, even? well, that would be cool, and if it happened in the economy.... banks would start lending to each other, and then people could buy houses and cars, and then the people who work for builders and auto companies could keep those supply chains active, and so on and so on and so on. it may never be like it was, but it can absolutely be better than it is right now, and i think there's little doubt that this package will help.)

ANYWAY, back to president's day. is there a market? are there people who are disposed to buy something on president's day? here's what i bought yesterday:

- a spinach salad for lunch
- a soda at 4pm

not terribly different than what i buy pretty much every other day.

so... i dunno. if the act of "market-ing" is all about bringing to the attention of people those things we think they should buy, and causing them to be pre-disposed to do so (my own definition) ... then something has been left out here on the marketing of president's day -- at least for me. i'd like to buy a president, sure -- who wouldn't? -- but given all the trouble rod blagojevich and roland burris are in at the moment, it looks like spinach salad is probably the better way to go.

bad marketing

2009-02-13T16:37:00.000-08:00

sorry, everyone. bad marketing is everywhere. it's like that movie, the sixth sense. except i would whisper, "i see bad marketing. only the people who're doing it don't know it's bad. they walk around like nothing's wrong." i might not be as convincing as haley joel osment, but that doesn't mean it's not so.

let's take my #1 offender, capital one, which has held that dubious distinction for some time -- well, at least since the stupid ads broke in 2005. at that time, ad critic steve hall did a pretty interesting review, with which i completely concurred. i'm sure both of us thought the ads were not long for this world, but in fact they've continued, and gotten worse (although the always annoying david spade is no longer present, which i suppose would have helped if the premise had been improved. but as it is, it really doesn't matter. with or without spade, these ads still suck.)

here's another reason capital one is guilty of bad marketing -- there's got to be more to the campaign than just ads, even if they're great ads. there's zero integration of the creative across the touchpoints where the brand contacts the consumer. check out the website -- it looks like... well, a bank's website. or the collateral -- nothing to do with the goths, the aliens, or the web presence. it's totally different approach. or the cards themselves, even. they look like ... a credit card. even though i hate the concept, i'd actually give the campaign credit if they pulled through the creative to the rest of these things.

my father-in-law, one of the smartest guys i know, hates these ads but admits he has a cap one card because it's the only banking organization that doesn't charge you a fee when you use the card outside the u.s., and my inlaws travel alot, so that could add up to some big $s. to me, that's a USP that ought to be front and center, not alien creatures.

dogs don't shop

2009-02-12T16:07:00.000-08:00

that willy... i swear, a pair of glasses and a haircut and he could be ed begley, jr. except slightly less bizarre.

but he is an ever-present reminder of one of my favorite marketing stories, called "dogs don't shop." it's a little fable about market segmentation, and how sometimes even smart marketers miss the basics. it goes something like this:

once upon a time, there was a dog food company (willy would say, "oh boy! oh boy! mom, go work there! maybe you'll get free product! maybe i can come to work with you and I can get free product!). and the marketers at the dog food company have produced a new type of dog food, one that is lower-calorie and intended for overweight dogs. and the marketers are talking about how their segmentation should thus follow that path -- they should now come up with line extensions, for thin dogs, and maybe old dogs, and young dogs, and pregnant dogs, and dogs with various kinds of health problems, etc. the entire conversation turned on what different kinds of dogs there are and what those dogs need. by the end of the meeting, they've got a segmentation wheel full of potential targets based on dogs.

and that's the problem. DOGS DON'T SHOP. (well, sometimes willy thinks he's shopping, but that's only because we usually agree on what he should have at the local pet smart).

who shops? DOG OWNERS. and are they more likely to be motivated by the dogs needs, or by their relationship with the dog? if you have a dog, you know it's the latter.

so this caused the marketers to re-evaluate, and come up with a segmentation schematic that actually addresses the real targets and the real buying motive, PEOPLE AND HOW THEY FEEL ABOUT THEIR DOG. this became:

dog as dog -- people (and shame on them) who stake their dogs outside, and have them sleep in doghouses.

dog as pet -- people who include their dogs as family members, but they better not get up on the sofa.

dog as child -- come on up on the sofa, girl. that's right, snuggle right up next to your daddy.

and, finally, dog as grandchild. these are the dogs that are getting all kinds great bling like $350 hermes collars and custom-made dog furniture from the pampered puppy.

next time you go to the pet store, look in your cart and see which target you are!

by the way, willy's advice on the subject is to check out this great list of other reasons why dogs are better than men -- or women.

willy's inaugural guest blog

2009-02-11T17:47:00.000-08:00

hey, everyone -- it's willy here. my mom just got back from denver and says she's "cat-tired." (we don't use that other expression in our house, 'coz it's simply a lie.) so, it's time for my first blog entry. well... my first on THIS blog, that is. i actually have a full time gig on some others. just a way to get a little extra chow.

before i begin on marketing, i'd like to paws (ha! get it? paws! that's funny!) for a moment and adjust the font and size of the text on this blog. my mom has been using verdana, which is a nice face, but i'm really more a trebuchet kinda guy. and clearly the letters have to be bigger 'coz my -- ha ha! paws! -- get stuck on the keyboard. clearly, it's time for a toenail clipping.

so, here's what i think about marketing. it's pretty simple to tell good from bad. if it's about dog food or dog toys or dog beds or dog food or dog food or dog food, it's good. if it's about those stupid little dog outfits, or dog ear cleaning solutions or dog diets, then it's bad. see? you don't have to be terribly enlightened to know this. however, it does help to have read How to Raise a Jewish Dog, by the Rabbis of the Boca Raton Theological Seminary. unlike my parents, who are jewish only about 2.3 days per year, i'm jewish all the time. my brother is too, but he's somewhat less observant and moves in semi-nomadic fashion from meal to meal only when brisket and latkes are being served.

so that's it. my mom (who also has read the jewish dog book) is trying to guilt me into laboring over this post, the way she does on hers ... but i'm so over that noise. there's gonna have to be some serious cookytime involved to get me to do that.

see ya,

willy.

presentation tomorrow

2009-02-10T21:53:00.000-08:00

so tomorrow i'm chatting with the good folks at the Colorado Business Marketing Association (BMA), which, by the way, has nearly 700,000 google hits to its credit. way to go, guys.

they've asked me to speak to them about global re-branding. this is a topic about which i am completely jazzed, and i'd have no problem speaking for days on end about it.

the big disconnect with some folks is that they think B2B companies don't need to invest in "all that consumer stuff." i argue that it's precisely the reason we DO need to make those investments. B2B sales are, as we all know ...

1) are typically higher in $s (or Es or yen or RMB or pick your currency)
2) typically have longer lead times
3) can be fraught with more disasterous consequences if you screw up and pick the wrong partner (due to #1 and #2 above, but also because you've now put a company's products or services in place, and when those are either highly customized or very expansive or otherwise a PITA to change, people start to look at you funny and wonder aloud about the state of your 401K)

ANYWAY, i digress. the point is, "all that consumer stuff," which to me is codespeak for "brand building work that improves our awareness, preference, margins and marketshare" becomes increasingly critical when the sales are few and far between and when the switching barriers are high. people -- and it doesn't matter if they're industrial buyers -- cannot buy what they don't know about, and they won't buy what they don't find compelling, and they won't keep buying from a company that can't solve their problems and with whom they don't feel they have a good relationship. this is all really simple stuff but it's kinda funny how often we forget about these basic truths.

i intend to show the BMA group a very interesting video which has gone viral on the web. it provides current context for technology-based efforts -- cutting to the chase, it says we're behind before we even get started. and i'm sure the #s it references have already changed since it was originally posted. but still, you really should check it out.

i know i promised a diatribe on "bad marketing," and i promise that will follow soon.

good marketing

2009-02-09T16:21:00.000-08:00

what's good marketing? one marketer's trash is another marketer's dream ... there's an amazing amount of disagreement, i think, even among folks who have spent their entire careers in this field, about what's "good." some think award-winning advertising is good. some think the proof is entirely in sales. some think the answer lies in net promoter score (NPS). and others think those folks ought to stfu and let's go get some drinks, the client's an idiot for god's sake, and we get paid whether it works or not.

so here are some of my past and present favorites. i have a long list, so you'll see more faves from time to time. the fact that these show up first is meaningless...they surfaced in a recent conversation with the dogs (who are all about making stains, drinking bottled water, and riding around in cars), and perhaps that's why they're now top of mind.

tide to go sta in s t i c k. this is an outstanding combination of product development and competitive differentiation, channel marketing, and communications. tide figured out where shout had gone wrong -- a great idea, the wipes were, and they were first to market -- but the idea was poorly executed, and not promoted well. plus, tide's 2008 superbowl ad was incredibly well-done and the web tie-in was equally cool. and this, about a laundry detergent! i admit, as one who's prone to spilling things on herself, i am in fact the target for the product ... but i think i would still have liked it.

evian. what can one say about a company that can convince people (before anyone else did) that it's not only okay to pay money for something which is free -- but that it's really required if you want to improve your image? i hadn't been to evian's website in a while, but it's really quite something. i HAD seen the line extensions (jean paul gautier, christian lacroix and the new cool "palace" bottle) and it'll be interesting to see if that's enough to continue to propel the brand. i still remind people who tell me that people will never pay more that "evian" is "naive" spelled backwards, and people will ALWAYS pay more if you simply give them a compelling reason to do so. "brand" is not "margin" spelled backwards, but really, isn't this what it's all about? the only gripe i have is that the music on the site sounds remarkably like a soundtrack from a low-budget porn flick. (How do i know this, having never seen a low-budget porn flick? i'm guessing, and have heard from others).

hyundai. ok, time will tell whether these guys were incredibly brilliant or seriously misguided when they came up with the "lose your job, give back the car" deal, but you've gotta admit, it's a pretty solid idea for the current time. so far, only suburu and hyundai are hanging onto increases in the car market (slim ones, but still positive numbers vs. the other automakers). their work is having a positive impact on their brand performance, and jd power doesn't lie about quality -- hyundai has it over acura, bmw, volvo and a host of other more expensive vehicles.

next time ... bad marketing, and what can be done about it.

why, oh why, am i doing this?

2009-02-08T15:49:00.000-08:00

because, dear reader, it's become clear to me that there are just too many people out there who don't understand what good marketing is, and why it's important. and too many of them are in decision-making roles, where they are either permitting unfortunate displays of adolescent behavior(see, doritos superbowl commercial) or constraining their organizations by forcing them into been-there, got-the-t-shirt initiatives (see, ABB billboard). there obviously will be marketers who disagree with this -- especially, i would guess, those who work for frito-lay and ABB.

but this is the web and, as i tell willy & hoover, my labradors, "on the internet, nobody knows you're a dog." or for that matter, why you think you should be entitled to blog about marketing. (by the way, willy is part-human and may, from time to time, serve as a guest blogger. hoover is a tornado in a dog's body and suffers from sub-standard typing skills, so willy or i will have to convey his thoughts.) they certainly have their own, highly well-informed opinions on marketing which have been developed during hours of watching animal planet when i'm not home. however, on this point, they both are in agreement with me:

good marketing should be brought out into the light and celebrated even (willy argues, "especially") by those who are not the target. bad marketing should be ridiculed and serve as a reason to make conscious choices for the products and services provided by a company's competitors. ok, i know "ridiculed" sounds a little harsh. but seriously, would you consider having a capital one card in your wallet? i'd be afraid of what others would think of me. (hoover says, "can it buy dog food? and toys? oh, i reeeeeaaallllly need some news toys.....")