October 28, 2007

Looking for the Common Thread

I'm looking at this August article about the General Motors online campaign customized to match each targeted consumer based upon their Web habits. The three customized versions of the ads may as well be ads for three completely different products.

And I'm thinking about a conversation I had the other evening with Charlotte Beers. (Last week when I was writing about how important math majors may become in our industry, I had forgotten at the moment that Charlotte was indeed a math major. So she would no doubt be as formidable a force in our industry during this century as she was in the last!)

Anyway, I was talking about this whole trend of customization and "having-it-your-way," and Charlotte made the powerful reminder that people are more alike than they are different. There are core emotions that all humans share, and a brand's challenge is to connect with those emotions in an authentic, resonant way.

That's the heart and soul of effective marketing. And anything else is "cutting corners" or wishful thinking that technology could possibly take the place of smart and creative brand positioning.

I wonder if some marketers aren't running the risk of dilluting brands - or not adequately defining them - by their over-concentration on customized communications.

Having customized products is one thing. Starbucks certainly provides an extraordinary array of choices. But, when it comes to marketing and communications, Starbucks is laser focused and consistent in its brand position - to be "the third place" beyond people's homes and offices.

Apple is equally focused in its marketing and communications...and offers, interestingly, a much more limited product choice than its PC competitors. I'm fascinated by that, as it seems to be so contradictory to the individuality of Apple's "think different" customers.

Making a Difference

This morning, there was an author on The Today Show talking about his book on what makes a job miserable. He said there are basically three reasons people find they feel miserable at work. The first is anonymity...no one knows who they are or acknowledges their work. The second is relevance...they don't feel their job is especially relevant. And the third is they don't feel they are making a difference.

Actually, I would say all the first two are both part of the third: making a difference. People want to feel they are making a difference. It is such a basic, vital human need.

One way that companies can help their employees feel they are making a difference is by making a commitment to cause marketing. A recent survey shows that 40 percent of employees wish their company would do more to support a cause. What do they care most about? Health issues (80%), education issues (77%), environmental issues (77%) and economic development issues (77%).

Getting a company involved in cause marketing can boost pride, loyalty, and productivity. But it works best when you can find a way to get the employees involved as well. Don't let it be just a corporate undertaking. Figure a way to enable everyone to be involved, hopefully in ways that fit their individual interests and abilities.

October 22, 2007

Blog Action Day Follow-Up

More than 20,000 blogs participated in Blog Action Day...writing about the environment...and blogger.com has put out a list of a dozen blogs focused on environmental issues.

It's really exciting to see the revolution unfold. Institutions all around us are making major commitments to the environment. Individuals are activated. I find myself in offices looking at the conventional light bulbs and other impediments and making a mental list of ways to save energy. I'm sure I'm not alone.

One of the Most Basic Rules of Smart PR - Admit Your Mistakes

It's so interesting to watch the candidates for president, especially as the campaign heats up. Giuliani's past is riddled with mistakes, and he wisely admits them and totally disarms people in doing so. Bernard Kalik? Just a bad hire, in Rudy's mind...a mistake that he learned from. Wow! Can you imagine Bush ever saying that about Rumsfeld? Giuliani even admitted that it was pretty dopey to take a cell phone call from his wife in the middle of a speech.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, is darned if she'll ever admit doing anything wrong. Her Iraq vote will haunt her forever, because she simply will not own up to it. She says she did the best she could do with the information she had. (I suppose Giuliani could say the same about Kalik.) But, looking back and knowing what she knows now, would she vote the same way again? And, if not, does she think she made a mistake voting as she did? What the heck is wrong with admitting to a mistake? Isn't it the most basic of rules in our business...or any business?

Math Majors into Marketing?

Booz Allen's Richard Rawlinson has written a great article in Strategy + Business about the changing landscape of our industry. "The typical business marketing career has attracted gregarious people who operate comfortably within a familiar professional culture with well-defined techniques," writes Rawlinson. "But now marketers must not just select and purchase proven instruments. They must envisage, shape, and develop new tools for designing and engendering more effective consumer connections. This demands an openness to experimentation, an inclination toward pioneering, and an ability to integrate marketing with strategy as never before. The new marketing team must do this while honing the number crunching analytical ability that is needed to justify and fine-tune new strategies."

Rawlinson goes on to describe what he calls "number crunching creatives." He writes, "To conceive, evaluate, and invest in new commercial propositions that engage audiences across many dimensions, marketers will be called upon to make decisions that reflect broad marketing savvy, close awareness of the product's or service's current position in the marketplace, and in-depth knowledge of quantitative techniques and the capabilities of new technology. Thys, one of the new marketer's key skills is the ability to marry fluency in higher mathematics and computer modeling to marketing flair and creativity."

Looking carefully as some of today's most innovative and successful marketing initiatives substantiates this conclusion very clearly. It represents a major shift from the more narrow (and less deep) skill set of yesterday's marketers. And it sets forth an extraordinary challenge and opportunity for us all.

October 15, 2007

Blog Action Day

Yup, that's what it is...Blog Action Day...when all participating blogs say a word or three about the environment.

Fifteen years ago, MTV did a special on our planet's precious resources. The program's host and catalyst was Al Gore. Fifteen years ago.

Here is South Carolina, there are still some people who don't believe that global warming is a scientific fact. Maybe they're the same people who believe that evolution is not a scientific fact. Old habits die hard.

But fortunately, there are plenty of others who not only recognize the threat of global warming, but are actually doing something about it in a leadership way. And that's very heartening.

As individuals, we can all do our part. But the only real action will occur when public policy kicks in...not with woosy low-level standards designed to molify the folks in Detroit, but with bold actions that are as serious as the threat itself. History will prove that the disgrace of the current administration may not be Iraq, but may rather be its shameless neglect of our planet's precious resources.

What we do as individuals needs to include putting as much pressure as possible on our elected officials to make the policy decisions that will really make the difference.

Drew Gilpin Faust Tells It Like It Is

In our business, we talk a lot about measurement and specificity and training for specific skills, etc. And all of that is important, to be sure. But I've always thought that it was most important to be able to think and reason and understand the context of things...to be able to see things differently and come up with creative ideas that sparked attention, catalyzed action, and produced results.

In her inaugural speech at Harvard, the new president Drew Gilpin Faust spoke about the need for higher education to resist demands that it quantify what it is teaching. "A university is not about results in the next quarter," she said. "It is not even about who a student has become by graduation. It is about learning that molds a lifetime, learning the transmits the heritae of millennia, learning that shapes the future."

Our industry is now populated with public companies that do indeed focus almost singularly on the next quarter (as, regrettably, do so many of their clients). And what is lost is the larger, longer perspective that can lead to much richer results in the long term. I find that our company's independence is increasingly valuable to our work product and our clients. And so is our willingness to think courageously and talk straight.

Dr. Faust's words http://www.president.harvard.edu/speeches/faust/071012_installation.html
are great food for thought on this Blog Action Day.

October 7, 2007

Sunday's working fine, Ida, except that I missed last Sunday because we were [happily] computerless in the little town of Marcialla in Tuscany.

We all know about the weakness of the dollar. Dealing with it can be shocking. That 80-cent coffee is now about $1.80, not just because the dollar is weak but also because some European countries like Italy set their local-currency-to-Euros conversion at a highly inflationary rate.

One Italian friend told us that he can take his family to New York or Miami for an entire week for no more than the cost of a single weekend at the closest Italian beach resort.

Well, of course, that opens up tremendous marketing opportunities for the United States. Walk down the streets of virtually any major U.S. visitor destination (including Charleston) and you'll hear the languages of European countries, and Great Britain. (Interestingly, the Russians and English have replaced the Americans and Japanese in travels to Europe. Departures Magazine focuses its current issue on Russia. Wow, what a change over the past couple of decades!)

Any U.S. visitor destination worth its salt should be promoting itself abroad. And, of course, anyone with a product or service that might appeal to the European market should be promoting it over there. Their prices may be staggering. But ours are a steal!

Get Ready for '08 Trend Predictions

They're already popping up in the media. I just read a bunch that include integration across customer buying process, multi-touch campaigns, etc. Really nothing new, only an intensification of what we've been seeing for some time. Online ad spending - which increased about 33% this year - will continue to grow, especially with new opportunities from biggies like Google. One study predicts that 89% of brands will use text and multimedia messaging to reach their audiences. Social media will continue their rocket-fast growth, and we'll all be exploring ways to market to their members (very tricky stuff).

More choices, more complexities...more challenges, more fun!

Plane Reading

My plane reading consisted of an enormous compedium of essays called Cultural Amnesia by Clive James. He's incredibly literate. I should say he's intimidatingly literate, as he profiles more than 100 cultural icons of the last century. It has a very personal perspective and some terrific quotes from the subjects....such as this one from Coco Chanel: "Luxury is a necessity that starts where necessity stops."