May 26, 2006

Claire, you looked great. And we loved seeing you.

Find Your Own Bark

Martine was telling Carol tonight about how she doesn't even go to the stationery show at the Javits Center anymore...because it's full of knock-offs of latest trends. Apparently, this year one popular trend is letterpress stationery.

Martine would rather go to special-invitation shows that have unique stationery lines from which she can choose (for her stationery store)... or hire designers to create things that directly reflects her own sensibility.

Result: she's got a tremendously successful business.

For 20 years, from its very inception, we marketed Spoleto Festival USA. The original Spoleto Festival (called Festival dei Due Mondi) was established in 1958 in the small Umbrian hill town of Spoleto Italy. But, when people used to ask me what "Spoleto" meant (when translated from Italian to English), I would say that it means "trust me." That is, "trust the Festival to provide you with something that will challenge, stimulate, and entertain you. Don't worry if you haven't heard of it before. We've seen it, and we think you'll like it."

I said this, because the Festival was seeking artists who had identified their own "bark," and there's simply no way of characterizing them adequately. You've got to see them for yourself. Who among us can ever adequately describe the impact of a unique work of art?!

Take, for example, the artist Savion Glover who performs at Spoleto this weekend. He is, I suppose, a "tap dancer." But to call Savion Glover a tap dancer is like calling Picasso a painter.

Savion Glover has done what every successful artist needs to do...and what every successful marketer MUST do...find his own bark.

If you see Savion Glover, you will see someone who does things that no one else can do.

"If you buy my product or service, you will get something you can get nowhere else."

THAT'S the challenge for us marketers.

So, Martine is looking for stationery that reflects her own special identity. She won't find it in a sea of sameness. She'll find it among a much more discreet array of purveyors AND within her own soul.

And that is where we must find that special sweet spot for our clients.

The legendary Ray Kroc said that if two people have the same opinion, one of them is extraneous.

Absent finding one's own bark, a product or service is condemned to the becoming a commodity. And that is marketing death.