Notes on Marketing & Communications

September 2, 2008

2008-09-02T22:09:00.002-04:00

It Takes More than a One-Trick Pony

For the first time in a decade, catalogue/Internet retailers have seen their first decline in Internet sales as a percentage of total direct sales. Speculation is that the decline is caused by reducing the number of catalogues mailed to customers who primarily buy over the Internet.(That reduction is a result of ever-increasing costs in postage.)

Without the support of direct mail, Internet sales declined. Makes sense, when you think about the value of multiple ways of communicating with a customer in multiple ways.

But the seduction of Internet communications (especially seductive because they can be so targeted and so measurable) risks blinding us to the value of a multi-channel approach.

There's been some experimentation recently with introducing the personal touch to online selling by analyzing online visitors in to hot and cold leads and then making personal contact via online chat with the "hotties." It's a complex slice and dice of prospects, but by adding the personal dimension to just the right targets, it's already proving to improve conversion rates by 15% or more.

All of this points to the need to continuosly improve and refine our marketing processes, never depending upon a single medium to carry the day. Furthermore, the selective infusion of personal contact in the Web-based sales process takes us back to the fundamentals of marketing and communications...building a bond with the customer, a bond that is customized and personalized.

The Lands End folks get it, as they spend time talking on the phone with customers talking about lots more than the company's products. And Piggly Wiggly gets it, empowering Smile Managers not only to solve people's problems but also simply to treat people as people. These companies most definitely have genuine relationships with their customers...building loyalty and trust and confidence. And, even in a tough economy, that'll beat "price and item every day."

It takes an optimal blend of channels, a strong dose of personal touch, and the ability to listen.

And Speaking of Listening...

I liked Geoff Livingston's book Now is Gone which has been making the rounds in our office. A couple of quotes worth noting:

"Participation affects all marketing. Fewer and fewer companies are able to retain the public's trust as faith shifts to the peer space. Today's customers expect to be listened to and understood. By being involved in social networks, a company can be in tune with what their customers' wants and needs are, and can apply what they've heard to their traditional and new media marketing programs.

.....

"I talk about brand, and people think you are talking about a trademark of a logo, but the brand itself is the way the consumer reacts when they hear your company name or see your logo or a product of yours on store shelves. That is all based on their experience and the one way, top down , pushed advertising and marketing is only part of that experience." [my italics]

August 29, 2008

2008-08-29T22:06:00.002-04:00

Are You Kidding?

Anyone who knows anything about marketing to women is either chuckling or dumbfounded or downright angry at John McCain's pick for vice president.

Can't you just see a bunch of well-intentioned white guys sitting around saying, "Hey, those Hillary women are upset. Their dreams have been shattered. Why don't we put a woman on the ticket and scoop them all up onto our side?"

Nice try.

Earth to well-intentioned white guys: women don't make decisions that way. Women are so much more thoughtful and considerate and painstaking in their buying decisions than men. Women seek information. They dig deep. They want to know more. They want to see more.

Governor Palin may be terrific. But beyond her native state of Alaska, she's an unknown. And women are not going to get to know her and be comfortable with her and vote for McCain based upon her with less than 10 weeks to go before the election. It's simply not going to happen.

If you're for McCain, you've got to be pulling your hair out wondering what the heck were these neanderthals thinking. If you're for Obama, you've got to be deleriously happy. And, if you're into marketing to women, you've got to be stunned that so many people still don't get it.

One More for the Bloggers!

The power of the blogging community is really amazing. In July, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's majority opinion in a Supreme Court case relating to whether the rape of a child should be a capital offense in the military was based in part on the conclusion that because child rape was a capital offense in only six states, and not under federal law, the death penalty for the crime did not meet the "evolving standards of decency" by which the court judges capital punishment.

In fact, child rape in the military is a capital offense under federal law. And that was pointed out not by any of the government lawyers who most certainly should have known that fact, but instead by a civilian Air Force lawyer Daniel Sullivan on his military law blog.

And now a computer security specialist Mike Walker has revealed on his blog the results of his hacking into Chinese records to discover the true ages of those miniscule Chinese gymnasts.

It's tremendously exciting to see this democratization of journalism and the incredible ingenuity and curiosity of individuals in the pursuit of knowledge and truth.

January 25, 2008

2008-01-25T09:21:00.000-05:00

On Reading

It's clear that I haven't been writing much lately. In part, it's because I've been spending more time reading.

A recent New Yorker article quantifies the decline of reading in our country. According to a research from the Census Bureau and the National Endowment for the Arts...in 1982, 56.9 percent of Americans had read a work of creative literature in the last 12 months. That proportion had dropped to 46.7 percent by 2002. And, according to the NEA chairman, "Poor reading skills correlate heavily with lack of employment, lower wages, and fewer opportunities for advancement."

We are all aware of the decline in newspaper readership. In 1970, there were 62.1 illion weekday newspapers in circulation...about 0.3 papers per person. By 2006, there were just 52.3 million, about 0.17 per person. A decline of almost 50 percent.

Book sales are also down....from 8.27 books per person in 2001, to 7.93 in 2006. The NEA reports that, adjusted for inflation, American household spending on books is near its 20-year low.

Not surprisingly, then, the average reading skills of young people are declining. The reading scores of twelfth graders fell an average of 6 points between 1992 and 2005...and the share of proficient twelfth-grade readers dropped from 40 percent to 35 percent. According to the article, "the deepest declines were in 'reading for literary experience' - the kind that involves 'exploring themes, events, character, settings, and the language of literary works.'"

The article goes on to say that this trend isn't confined to our country.

This decline affects us all. After all, according to the NEA, readers are more likely than non-readers to play sports, exercise, visit art museums, attend theater, paint, go to music events, take photographs, and volunteers. Proficient readers are also more likely to vote.

In his masterful play, The History Boys, Alan Bennett captures one of the joys of reading in a conversation between the wonderfully colorful teacher Hector and one of his students: "The best moments in reading," says Hector, "are when you come across something...a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things...that you'd thought special...particular to you. And here it is!...set down by someone else...a person you've never met...maybe even someone long dead...and it's as if a hand has come out and taken yours."

Do we really want to become a world of non-readers?

December 4, 2007

2007-12-04T22:20:00.000-05:00

Calling All Cowards

Look up "coward" in the dictionary, and the definition ought to read "anyone who expresses an opinion and hides behind anonymity." As an important and powerful form [and forum] of communication, the Internet is being corrupted by cowardly people who - through anonymity - either deceive others or express irresponsible views for which they are not at all accountable.

We all know the story of the head of Whole Foods. He ended up apologizing for hiding behind a pseudo identity while expressing views about his company and its competition.

Now we hear that Target was paying students to rave about the company on Facebook.

And here in Charleston, today's paper reports that the Solicitor (who's kind of like the local D.A.) has a press secretary who has been commenting on local newspaper stories (under a masked name, of course) with some pretty radical opinions and dispersions about his boss's political opponent.

Read what some of his opinions were and you'll no doubt be shocked. But what's most shocking to me was that he was outraged at being outed.

In other words, he - like so many who post opinions on newspaper sites - could rant and rave on whatever he wanted, make outrageous claims and not be accountable for them. I blame the newspapers who permit such anonymity as much as I blame the cowards who hide behind it.

We have a very good local paper. They try to write accurate balanced articles. It would be great to see a responsible dialogue about the issues they're covering. Instead, their comments page is filled with extremism - anonymous, often inaccurate, and almost always irresponsible.

These are just "grown-up" versions of the phony identities people create on MySpace or Facebook. I guess it's relatively harmless in a make-believe environment. But doesn't it risk making the validity and veracity of the Internet space suspect?

Why don't people dare to be themselves? And, if it's because they don't like "themselves," what then makes them think that hiding behind anonymity will make them any more likeable?

The world craves authenticity. It's the hottest currency going. And it starts with each individual.

November 10, 2007

2007-11-11T23:13:00.000-05:00

Pop Quiz

Great discussion from the Miami Book Fair with Frances Fitzgerald and others. One of the panelists gave the audience three combinations of two words each. I can't remember them exactly, but let's say they were "moon" and "ocean"....then "floor" and "hood"...and I can't at all remember the third combination.

Now...count backwards from 100 to 97.

OK....name the first laundry detergent that comes to mind.

Now name the first automobile that comes to mind.

More about this later.

The Million-Plus People March

In little more than a week after Stephen Colbert announced his "candidacy" for president, more than one million people had joined a group called "1,000,000 Strong for Stephen Colbert."

By contrast, Barack Obama's "million strong" group took more than eight months to get 380,000 members.

Then there's Ron Paul who raised more than $4 million on the Internet in one day. And he's not anywhere near the front runner in the polls.

It's a brand new world out there...thanks to new technologies and new ways of communicating.

Watch out for Mike Bloomberg early in '08.

The way we can reach people now...the way people can change, and change the dynamics of the marketplace...these are conditions that are filled with possibilities.

More On Pop Quiz

If you're in the majority, the detergent you named was Tide. And the automobile you named was Ford.

That's because those word associations set you up to make those choices.

What the panelists were discussing was a new book called What Orwell Didn't Know: Propaganda and the New Face of American Politics by Andras Szanto and Orville Schell.

They were pointing out how successful the Republicans are in using a vocabulary that carries with it a controlled message. Examples include Bush's constant linkage of Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden. The two had no contact to speak of, and one had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11. But the constant linkage has caused Americans to infer that they are one and the same.

Similarly, the constant usage of the phrase "war on terror" fits right into the Bush vocabulary based on one single concept: fear.

Walk into an airport and you'll hear an announcement saying that the current threat advisory level is something like "orange." What does that mean? Who knows? But it contributes to the atmosphere of terror...an atmosphere that has kept the Bush administration in power.

The Republicans are geniuses at coming up with the vocabulary to lead people to the responses they [the Republicans] want....just as "moon" and "ocean" may very well have led you to Tide.

Reagan did it with his "comfort food" vocabulary...."Star Wars" was going to be a protective shield to prevent any invasions..."Morning in America" was a world of hope.

As communicators and as consumers, we can learn so much from these choices of words and phrases. They demonstrate the value and importance of wisely choosing an appropriate vocabulary, repeating it frequently, and making certain that it is evoking the responses and associations that you seek.

October 28, 2007

2007-10-28T22:07:00.000-04:00

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

2007-10-22T21:02:00.000-04:00

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

2007-10-15T22:34:00.000-04:00

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

2007-10-07T07:34:00.000-04:00

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."

September 23, 2007

2007-09-23T13:14:00.000-04:00

"Of the People, By the People, For the People"

In two months, it will be 134 years since Lincoln spoke those lines. And yet they may embody a prescription for effective marketing and communications in today's consumer-driven world.

At the Aspen Institute this summer, we heard a presentation by Wes Boyd and Joan Blades, the husband-and-wife team who sold their education software company in the mid-'90's and were looking around for another one to start, when they became concerned that our government was becoming paralyzed by the Clinton impeachment proceedings. While they certainly didn't condone the President's behavior, they thought it was time to move on beyond the nation's obsession with it and attend to the much more vital issues of the day.

They e-mailed fewer than 100 friends to ask if they would like to join some kind of loosely defined initiative to urge that the country move on past this discursive issue. And, within two weeks, they had more than 250,000 individuals who signed up to say "Yes. Count us in."

Today they have 3.3 million.

And, of course, that organization is MoveOn.org.

It has become convenient to label MoveOn as a liberal group, and there's no doubt that it's positions tend to be on the liberal side. But that isn't driven by the leadership of MoveOn. It's driven by the members.

And that's what I find so interesting - and instructive - about MoveOn.

It's truly run by the members. Boyd and Blades are merely facilitators...hooker-up-ers. They said, "We're in the service business, figuring out ways for people to be involved. We try to connect up what people want to do with what's possible."

In 2004, for example, they asked members to create ads on issues that mattered to them. More than 1,000 ads were submitted. And the ads they ran came from the members.

Members define the issues, the positions, the communications.

It is the new "public square." Boyd and Blades pointed out that it's increasingly difficult to have a real "public square." Most gathering/shopping occurs in malls, and they are privately owned and generally do not permit distribution of literature. Traditional media are expensive for relatively small national organizations like MoveOn, so the Internet becomes the way to go.

Yes, there are exceptions, such as the recent Petraeus ad that got so much publicity. These are mass manifestations of opinions shared by the many individuals within MoveOn that have said, yes we want to take a position on this, yes we want to invest our own money on it, yes we want to create an ad that puts a really strong stake in the ground.

This is truly marketing and communications of the people, by the people, for the people. And it's very powerful.

If Detroit were as sensitive to its customer base, it would never have gotten into the pickle it's in today. There are lots of other examples of other tin ears out there.

It's a great challenge to develop the mechanism for timely, continuous input from your customer base...to listen to it and respond to it...and let it even take you sometimes to zones of discomfort but great possibilities.

September 16, 2007

2007-09-16T11:27:00.000-04:00

Comments

I love to get comments. I won't publish them unless they are signed. Some anonymous ones are interesting, but I'm not too crazy about hiding behind anonymity.

Becca's point is well taken. "Having it our way" in culture can be both selfish and limiting. I remember the first De Sica film I saw. I was impatient with this legendary director's pace. But then I got into it and he totally captivated me. Would I mistakedly fast forward, were I first exposed to his work today?

Yesterday we went to one of my favorite museums in the world, the Nasher Collection in Dallas. Ray and Patsy Nasher may have had the best "eye" of their time. He died this year, and she died a few years ago. Together they put together the most exquisite collection of modern sculpture in the world. It is exhibited in their jewel box museum, designed by Renzo Piano.

Anyway...the place was filled with people of all ages and types yesterday and I watched as they each experienced the place in entirely different ways. And with sculpture, you can move around the art, so you really have so many more ways of seeing. There was this wonderful symphony of different ways people were individually experiencing the art and I must say it seemed to be an experience totally consistent with today's consumer environment.

Space Matters

Being in a Renzo Piano designed museum reminds you of how important the setting is...not only for experiencing art, but also for our every day lives. Yesterday's Financial Times includes a piece about the research that has been conducted to analyze how different kinds of spaces affect the brain. People are happier and more productive in spaces that are well lit, have lots of color, and a certain degree of messiness that promotes eye contact. High ceilings enhance creativity. And there's more. A good source of information is a book to which we've referred before: The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton.

The article includes a great quote from Frank Gehry. It could as well apply to our business of marketing and communications. At a meeting of the Society for Neuroscience last year, Gehry warned against being too prescriptive: "What enables you to find the cure for cancer is not to follow steps A, B, C. Some accidental thing in the lab will happen. You follow your intuition, it is an informed intuition and you have the 'eureka moment.'"

September 3, 2007

2007-09-03T14:53:00.000-04:00

Making Numbers Come Alive

It's often challenging to make numbers matter. "Bill Gates is worth more than $50 billion." "The Atlantic Ocean covers about 31 million square miles." Tough to visualize those numbers. And yet, as we communicate in behalf of our clients, it's so important to make the numbers come alive...best done, typically, by relating them to something else.

A great example was the recent opening of the Venetian Macao Resort. How big is it? "Three times the size of the largest casino in Las Vegas." It "has more floor space than four Empire State Buildings." Great descriptors. And so easy to remember. Bravo Venetian Macao Resort promoters!

The Importance of Empowering Customers

We read so much about empowering customers these days. Three examples that recently caught my eye related to philanthropy, museums, and automobiles.

The Case Foundation (started by AOL founder Steve Case and his wife Jean) is asking the public to help them decide how to award their grants. Individuals and small local nonprofit groups can submit ideas for improving communities, and a panel of judges will select the recipients.

This practice is being followed by an increasing number of foundations, including the Rockefeller Foundation which solicits ideas on its Website. What used to be a we-decide-who-gets-our-money business is gradually morphing into a collaborative endeavor. Reaching beyond one's own sphere is fast becoming the rule.

A recent analysis of the decline of symphony orchestra audiences combined with the boom in art museum attendance concludes that what makes the museums so popular is that visitors can customize their own experience. I notice this when I go to a museum. I typically have a specific purpose...to see one or two works or one specific exhibition. I notice that others have their own agendas as well. We all "have it our way." By contrast, go to a symphony concert and you're stuck listening to what they want you to hear, in the order and at the speed they want you to hear it.

Finally, an online campaign for GM cars is customized to provide each recipient an ad that emphasizes what that recipient is most likely to respond to, based upon the recipient's Web habits. Creepy? A little, I think. But kind of fascinating as well.

A Wonderful Quote in Honor of Our Friend Henry Romaine Who Lived It

"Use all your senses, all the time...Take pains with the work; do it carefully. Relish the details. Enjoy your hunger. And remember why you're there." - Julia Child

August 26, 2007

2007-08-26T16:39:00.000-04:00

The Power of One

We all know the power of storytelling in marketing and communications. But sometimes we forget the power of stories focused on one single individual.

Numbers can be numbing. Six million Jews killed in the Holocaust. But tell the story focusing on one individual - Anne Frank, for example - and the issue comes alive.

Friday, we were talking about a Website we're working on. Mike Iannelli kept bringing us back to personalizing the subject matter. "We should tell the stories of individuals who have been in the situation we're talking about," he would say. And then he'd give examples, and yes of course it all made more sense.

An article in Oprah's magazine quotes a study in which three groups of subjects were solicited to give money to desperately poor children in Mali. One group was asked to give to a boy; one, to a girl; and one, to both. The one to both generated the fewest responses. Another study asked two groups of subjects to donate to lifesaving equipment...in one case, for one sick child and in the other, for a group of 8 sick children. Again, the individual garnered far more support.

Imagine the power of a national news program that focused each week on the life of a different individual who is still trying to recover from Katrina. This national tragedy and embarrassment (in terms of governmental response) could catapult to the top of our consciousness and catalyze action that is long overdue.

The Playbook of a Successful CMO

The Booz Allen strategy + business Books group has recently published CMO Thought Leaders: The Rise of the Strategic Marketer, in which they highlight the six keys to success for CMO's:

Put the consumer at the heart of marketing
Make marketing accountable
Embrace the challenges of new media
Recognize the new organizational imperative
Live a new energy paradigm
Remain adaptable

Getting close to customers, listening to them, engaging and involving them has become more important than ever. Smart companies are finding new ways to connect with customers, often through Websites that are created by the companies but not company-focused (such as P&G's sites www.homemadesimple.com and www.vocalpoint.com.

Booz Allen research reveals that "90 percent of marketers across nine industries refer to the measurement of marketing effectiveness as a major challenge." And it's what gets CMO's regularly beaten up by top management. Personally, I think we have to be careful that we don't try to apply metrics to everything and discount that which does not lend itself to measurement. After all, can you really measure feelings? ("You love me how much?")

With respect to the challenges of new media, I like a quote from Yahoo's Cammie Dunaway when asked the most important capability for a new marketer. "Intellectual curiosity," she said. "To be a great marketer, you need to be a great student.

The new organizational imperative harks back to Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind thesis that successful marketers are going to be people with both halves of the brain: the analytics and the intuition. Training is also an important part of the new organizational imperative, as is full and genuine integration not only across all marketing disciplines but also between marketing and the rest of an organization. That's a tough one...but, boy is it important.

The new agency paradigm requires us to stay ahead of the curve. And that curve is moving quickly. Beware of the agency that's still doing things the old way and stubbornly defending it.

Successful marketers must remain adaptable. They must embrace change. We'll succeed not by following trends but by participating in them.

And, of course, we can always learn from the successful marketers out there. When facing a marketing challenge, it's always fun to think of a company that may have faced an analogous challenge and study how they did it. Last night a lawyer friend told me how he was asked by his client if he could do such-and-such. Although he had no relevant experience, the lawyer said "Yes" because he immediately thought of an analogous challenge successfully faced by another company in another industry. He knew that he could analyze that and use good judgment to apply it to the challenge at hand. And that's exactly what he did.

It goes back to Cammie Dunaway's point about intellectual curiosity. If you've got that, the information is out there (thanks to the Web) to put the pieces together and shine.

August 19, 2007

2007-08-19T20:47:00.000-04:00

Cyberspace is a Meritocracy

I love the article in September's Fast Company about 17-year-old Ashley Qualls who has a Website called Whateverlife.com that attracts more than 7 million individuals and 60 million page views a month. According to Fast Company, "that's a larger audience than the circulations of Seventeen, Teen Vogue, and CosmoGirl! magazines combined." In fact, Ms. Qualls' site ranks number 349 out of more than 20 million sites! Yes, she's 17.

What this so clearly shows is that cyberspace is a meritocracy. Got a good idea? No one is going to stand in the way of you developing and implementing it. No barriers. No one saying you've got no experience, you don't have the skills, you haven't got enough education...whatever. Nike's slogan belongs to the Web: Just Do It.

What does Ms. Qualls' site consist of? Wonderful designs for MySpace pages.

With 200 million members - and new sign-ups at the rate of 2 million per week - MySpace has not only created a cultural phenomenon, but it has also spawned a slew of related businesses...like Whateverlife.com.

It's All About Community

MySpace is the poster child for community. People want to be involved, to engage, to create content, not just be exposed to it. And so we see YouTube, Facebook, and more.

The YouTube debate was groundbreaking. Ask almost anyone for the one question they recall, and they'll tell you the one with the snowman. The snowman was asking what each candidate would do about global warming. Contrast the indelibility of that question coming from the snowman vs. if it had come from a talking head moderator. No comparison. Suddenly, thanks to the ingenuity of some individual citizen, a question was posed in a compelling visual manner. (Would that the responses were as compelling.) Finally, someone was using the medium of television appropriately.

Now...will someone explain to me why the Republicans initially refused to have a YouTube debate apparently because of the snowman question which they thought was debasing in some way. Or was it that they didn't want to get that close to the people, or are that out of touch with today's culture of community and involvement. What a shame.

Consequences of Woman Power

I read somewhere that two economic consequences of women's buying power have been the boom in the home improvement industry (women rule at Home Depot and Lowe's...they outpace, outshine, and outspend us men in home improvement by a mile) AND the boom in democratized luxury. Mass luxury has been a result of women having money AND spending it.

Today's New York Times has an article about a new book, Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster, in which the author, Dana Thomas, writes that the quality, craftsmanship, and personal service once associated with luxury goods has disappeared. Now that everyone has easy access to the once-exclusive brands, they have lost their luster. New brands can now come in to take their place. Opportunity!

June 25, 2007

2007-06-25T21:14:00.000-04:00

On Creativity

One of my favorite authors is Don DeLillo. I still think that Underworld is the best book ever written about the last half of the 20th century.

Reading DeLillo is a magical experience. I always feel in the presence of someone for whom the ideas and words and perfectly formed paragraphs come totally natural. Kind of like watching Ted Williams hit a baseball.

Well, of course, while Williams had natural talent, it turns out that he studied the swing of a baseball bat with meticulous precision and discipline. He worked at his creativity. Discipline was an essential part of his process and his success.

The same turns out to be the case with DeLillo.

DeLillo recently gave his papers to the University of Texas. Among the papers is a letter from David Foster Wallace, in which he wrote, "Because I tend both to think I'm uniquely afficted and to idealize people I admire, I tend to imagine you never having to struggle with any of this narcissism or indulgence stuff...Maybe I want a pep-talk, because I have to tell you I don't enjoy this war one bit."

DeLillo replied: "I was a semiconscious writer in the beginning. Just sat and wrote something, or read the newspaper, or went to the movies. Over time I began to understand, one, that I was lucky to be doing tis work, and, two, that the only way I'd get better at it was to be more serious, to understand the rigors of novel-writing and to make it central to my life, not a variation on some related career choice, like sportswriting or playwriting. The novel is different...We die indoors, and alone, and I don't mean to sound overdramatic but you know what I'm talking about. Anyway, all of this happened over time, until eventually discipline no longer seemed something outside me thaturged the reluctant body into the room. At this point discipline is inseparable from what I do. It's not even definable as discipline. It has no name. I never think about it. But there's no trick of meditation or self-mastery that brought it about. I got older, that's all. I was not a born novelist (if anyone is). I had to grow into novelhood."

Two More Quotes I Like

"Dynamism is contagious." - The legendary art collector and patron Dominique de Menil

"A vision must always be larger than the technical equipment." - Pulitzer Prize winning playwrite Horton Foote

Capturing the Essence

The challenge of every marketer is to capture the essence of what is being communicated. The amateurs sniff around the edges. They may kind of 'get' the category, but they can't capture what is unique and special to YOU and YOUR product or service...and doesn't that drive you nuts? The true professional does get it...nails it right at the core...and then all communications flow from that core, and they are true...they are you.

We have two young women in the office - Katie Kelly and Katie Beaver - who have been creating what are known as 'brand essence videos,' and they have a wonderfully fresh take...unencumbered, unbiased, based in a blend of research and gut instinct. What a treat it is to see what they come up with!

West Herford lent me the book called The McKinsey Mind, and of course it details a lot of the rigorous processes that McKinsey consultants follow. But my sense was that even McKinsey recognizes and now emphasizes the importance of instinct and gut feelings as well. The future belongs to those who can serve up the optimal blend. Watch out for "the Katies!"

May 14, 2007

2007-05-14T22:04:00.000-04:00

Koons Redux

The artist Jeff Koons is back in style. There's a great article about his up-and-down career in the recent New Yorker magazine. Koons is the guy whose art works have included everything from a basketball floating in a clear container of water to an enormous abstract rabbit cast in shiny metal. Somehow Koons is able to take imagery we see every day and present it in a way that puts a smile on our face, seems (at first) unabashedly kitch, and then takes on a presence that is irresistable.

Explaining one of his works, he said, "What I wanted was to help people accept their own cultural background." In the New Yorker piece, Calvin Tompkins writes, "Marcel Duchamp, too, believed that the viewer was an essential part of the creative process. The artist initiated the creative act, he said, but it was up to the viewer to complete it, by interpreting its meaning and its place in art history."

It is no wonder, then, that in this interactive world of consumer choice and participation, Jeff Koons - who emulates Duchamp in so many ways - would become popular once again. In many ways, his genius is like the genius of great marketers: identify something that resonates with broad numbers of people...reinterpret it and re-present it, taking it to a new and different place while keeping "one foot" planted still in the culture from which the new has evolved.

No Room in the Inn?

As rich media grows on the Internet, web pages are becoming more crowded and plentiful. After all, it takes more pages to present more videos. Inevitably, these rich media videos are preceded by a commercial that is short and unavoidable. (The click forward function miraculously becomes 'frozen' when they appear.)

I'm waiting to see the extent to which sites exercise restraint on the number of ads they show, as well as the number of pages they make us scroll through in order to retrieve what could be much more succinctly presented.

April 30, 2007

2007-04-30T22:51:00.000-04:00

Be The Brand

We were walking along a square in Florence and noticed a sign that said The Mercedes Store. There was a handsome Mercedes Benz in the window, and I figured this was a local car dealership.

Not at all. It was a store featuring all kinds of stuff with Mercedes Benz logos. It was all about extending the Mercedes brand beyond the cars. Stores like this featuring Ferrari merchandise are commonplace in Italy...but, Mercedes?

Fact is, everyone is stretching their brand across a larger landscape. Caroline Nuttall passed along an article today from the LA Times about companies creating activities linked to their products or services. For example, the Nike store in Portland has a running club that meets - you guessed it - in the store. And Whole Foods there hold a monthly "singles night" with wine tastings and snacks.

It's all about "experiential" branding...people meeting people with similar lifestyles.

We recently profiled customers of one of our clients by lifestyle, and now we're marketing to them in ways that connect with each respective lifestyle. It beats traditional demographic and psychographic profiling, because it relates more powerfully to how customers interact with your product or service.

How Fresh is Your Logo?

If you're so used to seeing it that you hardly notice it (yes, that can make sense!), maybe it's time to freshen it up. It's a painstaking and inevitably expensive process, but logos are so revealing.

Saks Fifth Avenue recently refreshed its logo, reaching back to the 1973 version and then slicing and dicing it (quite literally) many different ways, so that it can appear in numerous formats but still be recognizable. It's very clever and contemporizes the store that - like any department store - could easily have drifted into stodgy obscurity.

Moving Billboards

The presidential political season is heating up, and we're starting to see a bunch of bumper stickers around town. We used to call them "moving billboards." Consumers choose to display them (which is an interactive experience that strengthens the consumer's bond to their candidate), and they are seen around town (like billboards).

Since consumers select what they display, the presence of bumper stickers can tell you a lot about the mood of the electorate.

With that in mind, it's not surprising that in 2004 there were 4 million magnetic "Support Our Troops" ribbons sold by the leading manufacturer...while last year, only 48,000 were sold.

April 7, 2007

2007-04-07T10:51:00.000-04:00

Opening Day

The baseball season has begun. I heard the fireworks from the ballfield last night, as Mike Veeck's Charleston Riverdogs opened their season. Veeck's fun-based business philosophy makes that team one of the most successful in its league. And, as he points out in his book - Fun is Good - the 'fun' philosophy is equally applicable in business. I heard a good line the other night at the revival of Inherit the Wind, starring Christopher Plummer and Brian Dennehy: "When you lose your power to laugh, you lose your power to think straight."

Designers are Today's Rock Stars

It's true. Design is so vital to the success of virtually any product or service, so the importance of good design has never been more highly valued. To prevent disease, New York City began giving away condoms in 1971. In recent years, the city has expanded its distribution. But it was only when the condoms were recently packaged with clever subway-themed logos that the numbers went way up. Within one month, more than five million condoms were distributed...vs. a total of 18 million for all of 2006. All that changed was the design, complemented by a poster campaign with lines like "New York's hottest new wrapper" and "We've got you covered."

Yay for the Team!

I'm so proud of our public relations team. They keep knockin' them out of the park, and - most recently - two Rawle Murdy case studies were picked to be published in PR News' Guidebook of the Top 100 Case Studies for 2006. That's quite an honor. The cases describe the situation, the action taken, and the results.

Heading for the Hills

I'm going on vacation for a couple of weeks. Back when the pollen washes away...hopefully.

March 22, 2007

2007-03-22T23:26:00.000-04:00

The World According to Karl

The creative process is fascinating. Who among us isn't curious as to how it works?

There's a wonderful article on fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld in the current New Yorker magazine. At one point it mentions that Lagerfeld "only rarely touches fabric." Instead, he makes sketches and directs others who work with the fabric itself. He is so completely comfortable with the realm in which he works. He knows what he does best, and he does it. No need to go beyond that.

His fear is boredom. And so he sets out to read and see everything. He aggressively stays in touch with the latest trends in the arts and popular culture. He has that most valuable of assets: curiosity. As Lady Amanda Harlech - who is called Lagerfeld's "muse" - says, "The curiosity is endless."

And Lagerfeld succeeded in doing something that we are all challenged with every day: He took a brand that was languishing, and he breathed new life into it and made it hotter than ever.

When he took over at Chanel, the founder (the legendary Coco Chanel) had been dead for 11 years and the brand was really on the skids. Lagerfeld took the brand's history and re-presented it in an over-the-top excitingly sensational way. It was a creative explosion.

What's interesting is that the Lagerfeld's makeover of Chanel was then mirrored by new designers energizing other staid fashion brands. Gucci brought in Tom Ford, Vuitton got Marc Jacobs, etc.

Lagerfeld opened these brands' eyes to the possibilities. And, in each case, they found a new creative force that could unlock their potential. When those of us not in the fashion industry take a look at Lagerfeld, he may appear to be a bizarre dress-up. But read about his life and extraordinary accomplishments, and you'll come away in awe...reminded again of the great power of curiosity, intellect, creativity, and courage.

Key Questions

I like this. From Entrepreneur, four key marketing questions:

1. Where do your prospects look first?

2. Which media touch your prospects most often?

3. Where will your message be best remembered?

4. Can you stick with it?

March 21, 2007

2007-03-21T23:28:00.000-04:00

What a Great Idea

Our friend Valorie has a store in East Hampton called the Monogram Shop. During the last presidential election, she decided to get some very attractive plastic glasses monogrammed....some with Bush/Cheney, and some with Kerry/Edwards. They started to sell briskly right away. Then she came up with the idea of putting a scorecard in the shop window, showing how many of each had sold. Then it became competitive. Those nice well-heeled Long Island summer folk were darned if their candidates were going to be losers...even if it was only about plastic glasses. I just love how clever she was!

First TV Spots, Now Magazines

We have seen the viewer generated TV spots. And now we're about to see the reader generated magazine. In Style has announced a quarterly publication called Your Look. Its content will be uploaded by style-conscious 16-20 year-olds. Talk about having it your way.

While I do like the idea of consumers being in control, I'm not sure they couldn't use a little editing and edification every now and then.

Pop Quiz

What's the fastest growing advertising medium?

That's easy. The Internet.

OK...what's the SECOND fastest growing advertising medium?

Not so sure?

It's billboards.

Makes perfect sense when you think about it. You can't change the channel or turn the page on billboards. They are there. And you are going to pass them. And see them. Like it or not. In fact, marketers will spend an estimated $7.2 billion on outdoor this year, vs. $6.7 billion last year.

Ray Nasher

Ray Nasher died at 85 last Friday. He and his wife Patsy developed what is arguably the most important collection of 20th century sculpture in the world. What does he have to do with marketing? Authenticity. Ray Nasher was the real thing. And that's what made him so very appealing. He was passionate about art. He had a great eye and fortunately made enough money to be able to act out his passion. But he wasn't flashy about it. He just plain loved it. And he lovingly created - with the brilliant Renzo Piano - an elegant jewel box of a museum to showcase much of it. The museum is a big success. Visiting it, one is struck by the attention of the visitors. They don't act as though they are in a building that happens to have a lot of great art. They act as though they are sharing the passion of an individual collection, reflected in the entire presentation...building, personnel, selection and arrangement of art...it is a total experience...totally authentic. And, boy, does it stand apart from and (for me) above everything else. Ray Nasher, a rather short man, did too.

February 28, 2007

2007-02-28T23:42:00.000-05:00

An Artistic Propogandist

When I was in Washington DC the other day, I was absolutely knocked out to see most of what is referred to as "George Catlin's Indian Gallery." Catlin was a mid-19th-century painter. In the 1830's he made five trips to paint the Plains Indians. He saw them as the embodiment of the Enlightenment ideal of "natural man," living in harmony with nature.

Catlin feared - rightfully - that the pure life of the Plains Indians was being threatened by our nation's westward expansion, along with the Indian Removal Act that required Indians in the southeast to resettle west of the Mississippi River.

He not only used his great talent to record the look and life of the Plains Indians, but he also used his art as a way to raise awareness of the issue of their culture being destroyed.

He created "George Catlin's Indian Gallery," consisting of more than 500 stunning paintings. He toured the Gallery and tried unsuccessfully to sell it to Congress. Ulimately, he went bankrupt. After his death, his debts were paid by an industrialist, and the paintings were contributed to the Smithsonian. They are remarkable. And, seeing more than 300 of them hung densely on the four walls of just one gallery is absolutely staggering.

Catlin's efforts may not have saved the Plains Indians, but they speak eloquently today to the beautiful individuality of different cultures and the importance of embracing, celebrating, and preserving them.

February 24, 2007

2007-02-24T09:40:00.000-05:00

Talking With, Not At

There's been a fair amount of attention to Jane Mayer's wonderful New Yorker article on Joel Surnow, the creator of the TV hit series 24.

Torture plays a big role in the series, and it inevitably succeeds in getting terrorists to fess up. Some folks who know better are concerned that the show justifies and even promotes torture, along with the notion that acting outside the law is OK, if it's in the service of "freedom."

As Mayer points out, the truth is that the torture stuff works fine on TV as a device that enables the show to move along at its customary manic pace. But, in real life, it doesn't really work at all.

Several experts quoted by Mayer substantiate that fact. One even says, "If anything, physical pain can strengthen the resolve to clam up."

So what does work?

The experts agree: "rapport building," notes Mayer, "the slow process of winning over informants." [Obviously, a process that would take way too long for the slam-bam style of 24.]

Once again, we're reminded of the value of talking with our audience, rather than at them.

I had to be reminded of that yesterday, when we brought some creative work to a client. We had been spending too much time with people further down in his organization, and they had filled our heads with all the great stuff they were doing. And we translated that into a bunch of ads that were more sensitive to the voice of those individuals, rather than ears of our audience. The president gracefully nudged us back into the right direction.

Our friends at MTV Networks are terrific at talking with, rather than at. Another expert is Nikki Hardin, who in her Skirt! magazines, makes a very powerful connection with her audience: women. It's a deft skill, one never to take for granted...and one we need to work on every day.

Back to Jack...I wonder how he could build rapport with some of those creeps. That would be a fascinating show of its own.

February 19, 2007

2007-02-19T22:17:00.000-05:00

This Google crowd is really pulling my chain. I click 'post the comments,' and they seem to post what they feel like posting. They must have something better to do...like start reading those 32 million books.

Ida, I agree that we're probably not going to be reading the about Natasha and Pierre on our computer screens. At least I certainly hope not. But what if you could read enough about them that you wanted to get the book and then - as a dear friend of mine used to do - read Tolstoy's classic every year. What a treat.

Nabokov wrote that we should read a book three times: first to follow the story, a second time to understand the subtleties of the story, and a third time to appreciate its full meaning.

I just read Dan Pink's "A Whole New Mind," in which he says the search for meaning is an integral part of what he calls the Conceptual Age...the age that follows the Information Age. We seek now, according to Pink, less materialism in our lives and more meaning. I believe that's true. As the Boomers turn 60, their pockets reasonably full of material possessions, they seem to seek more meaning. And meaning comes - in part - through contemplation and commitment...taking the time to engage with a piece of literature or a painting or a person.

I think those 32 million titles on Google will be a catalyst of curiosities, providing information, insight and possibilities to everyone with a keyboard...and that, hopefully sooner rather than later, will be everyone.

But I completely agree that the computer will not be the sole source of our visual material. Newspapers, for example, can always have a place in our lives, as books most certainly will. The reports of newspapers' death, like Mark Twain's, have been greatly exaggerated.

Another advantage of making books available online is the expansion of available titles. I don't know about you, but I'm sick of seeing the same limited number of titles at book stores. Talk about 'tip of the iceberg!'

Gifts that Keep on Giving

Someone asked me the other day about advertising ROI. It's a subject that keeps coming up. We've studied it, read books on it, and made all kinds of arguments for it...but, at the end of the day, who really knows?

The Super Bowl spots, for example, have a life on the Super Bowl...but then they have a much longer - and larger - life on the Internet and in other media. I didn't mind the two guys kissing, but that chest hair business frankly looked painful...and ridiculous. But pain seemed to be the currency this year, what with those guys slapping one another in the Bud spot. Whatever. Point is the spots get talked about and played many, many times more than the original 'buy.'

I think it was in this morning's Times that I read that 20 million people watched the Golden Globes, but then the next day 39 million people checked them out on People Magazine's website.

The afterburn has become more powerful than the original rocket launch. And any attempt at responsible ROI analysis becomes moot.

February 15, 2007

2007-02-15T23:30:00.001-05:00

OK, Ida, comments are now back on. Don't diss me. Diss Google.

And, speaking of Google, how 'bout their project to scan every book ever published onto their site?!

They're well on their way to scanning the more than 32 million titles estimated to be in print. They estimate that the job will take the better part of a decade.

Imagine that. Each of us will have access to virtually every single book every published...as close as our computer or PDA. And, when wireless is worldwide and computers are so inexpensive that they blanket the globe, all people everywhere will have that access. Many more dreams will become a reality. Imaginations will be unleashed. Curiosity will be king. And won't that be fine!

Myths about the Restaurant Industry

In preparation for moderating a panel at the Charleston Food + Wine Festival, I was reading about the restaurant industry today. A couple of myths were dispelled.

First, failure rate. The "fact" that 90% of new restaurants fail has been widely spread for years. But recent research reveals that the actual number is much closer to 57-61%. And, if you look at how "failure" is recorded, it is determined by the closing of a restaurant. Well, obviously, people close businesses for lots of reasons other than financial failure (moving, retiring, changing their plans, etc.).

Second, what contributes to success. Conventional wisdom is that it's having a clear strategy and adequate capital. But, as I read in one report, having a clear strategy or sufficient capital won't necessarily protect restaurant owners from failure if they could not articulate their concept or commit themselves wholeheartedly to the business.

At the end of the day, what matters most is having a clear concept that is passionately and consistently espoused, the ability to commit huge amounts of time to the business, and a willingness to adapt to changing situations.

It strikes me that this is the formula for success in any business. Clear concept AND passion. Consistency on the core values that matter most...combined with flexibility to adapt to changing dynamics.

The Business of Going Green

A reporter asked me the other day if I thought that people were making purchase decisions based upon a company's commitment to being green. I do think that it's increasingly a factor in buying decisions. We've talked about some of that here: for example, citing advertisers who choose publications in which to advertise partially because of their commitment to being green.

We're also seeing green products selling so much better. The Times had a big piece on the wave of new household cleaning products that are green. If they're able to be price competitive, I think they'll blow Windex, Fantastik, et al out of the water. I'm told that the quality is at least comparable. During that same decade when Google scans 32 million books, traditional household cleaners could go the way of the buggy whip. All because the public - as usual way ahead of its leaders - wants to act responsibly with respect to our fragile planet.

February 11, 2007

2007-02-11T17:20:00.000-05:00

Since when did Google rule the world?! Somehow they have taken over my blogworld and - in the process - held up some comments....comments for which I am so very grateful. They have hopefully now been released from Google Hell, and I look forward to reading them.

Sometimes I think I'm going to open the ice box door, and there will be Google. Enough already. I want my own life.

Wisdom for the World of Non-Profits

Most of us marketers are involved in non-profits. The other day I heard a great presentation by Dr. Thomas Wolf who is a leading strategist for non-profits. He highlighted five key issues, and I think it's worth passing them along, as I found his insights very useful. They also boxed with some research we've done recently. So that made me feel good!

In Wolf's view, there are five key issues: changing marketplace, leadership, ethics and accountability, new philanthropoids, and sustainability.

The changing marketplace is caused by the incredible increase in competition. There are simply so many more non-profits. Wolf used the example of cultural organizations in the San Francisco Bay area. In 1950, there were 16 of them. Today there are more than 1,000.

There's an associated challenge of balancing supply and demand. Wolf says that funders understand the need for this balance, and they often decide who should survive, because they don't like having too many organizations compete for their money. He calls this a trend toward 'Darwinian funders!'

Obviously, there are also demographic changes in the marketplace, as the Hispanic market increases, along with other shifts.

And, finally, there are the effects of technology. We now have so many more entertainment options at home that it's more and more difficult to get people to go out for symphonies, zoos, museums, or other opportunities provided by non-profits.

In terms of leadership, Wolf said that for the first time potential leaders don't want to serve on boards because of legal exposure (in our litigious society) and because of the potential of bad press (if you're a board chair of an orchestra and the musicians go on strike, you are often criticized in the media).

He noted that many non-profit staff members are aging boomers who grew up in a more idealistic time. Their generation is being replaced by one that wants non-profits to provide pay and benefits that are comparable to what's available in the for-profit sector. That's a challenge!

And, there's the challenge of 'the vanishing volunteer.' Today's two-earner household is not providing the volunteer service of generations past.

The third issue - ethics and accountability - is represented by the fact that non-profits have now had their share of scandals (United Way, Red Cross, etc.). Non-profits are held to a higher standard, as well they should be. And the government has put them under much greater scrutiny, as has the public.

Wolf's fourth issue is The New Philanthropoids. Here is where his information resonates so powerfully with our research. He notes that 50 years ago, philanthropists were great providers who didn't ask a lot of questions. That has all changed. There's been a move from patronage to investment.

Today's philanthropists want to be involved in their investment. They are more results-oriented, want accountability, and seek a specific return-on-investment. It's really like the venture capital model. When you get venture capital, you get the money...and the person. That's the way it is with today's 'venture' philanthropists. They want a level of involvement that is totally different from the patrons of 50 years ago.

That demands a whole new way to communicate with funders. And many non-profits have not made this change. It's critical.

Finally, Wolf discussed sustainability. How do you keep non-profits going. Once again, the ways of the past no longer apply. Those ways were some variation on improving the organization, getting systems right, and then building endowment. But those models failed because they lacked the clarity, continuity, and flexibility needed in today's new marketplace. Non-profits need to be crystal clear about their mission. They need to be able to see the long term. AND they need to be flexible...able to change very nimbly.

This is only a top-line report on Wolf's presentation. But it so clearly points out the changing dynamics in the non-profit world. It sets out the key issues. And it includes specific insights that can help all of us marketers make the non-profits in which we're involved all the more successful.

February 6, 2007

2007-02-06T20:16:00.000-05:00

What Makes a Great Teacher

We all had them. Teachers who made the subject matter come alive. How did they do it? What did they have in common? What can knowing that inform our work as professional marketers?

That's what Dan Heath had been studying around the time that he and his brother Chip (a professor at Stanford University) wrote Made to Stick, a book about what makes some messages stick (and others, not).

My favorite teaching example in the book involves an Iowa elementary school teacher named Jane Elliott who - in the wake of Dr. King's assassination in 1968 decided that she needed to teach her third graders about discrimination.

She divided the students into two groups: brown-eyed kids and blue-eyed kids. She announced that brown-eyed kids were superior. Blue-eyed kids, then, had to sit in the back of the classroom. And they had to wear special collars. Brown-eyed kids were given extra time at recess.

Friendships were badly disrupted, as brown-eyed kids acted out their superiority.

But, the next day, Ms. Elliott reversed the rules. Now the blue-eyed kids were superior. Kids who the day before had described themselves as feeling sad, bad, stupid, and mean suddenly had a complete change of attitude.

More than attitudes changed over those two days. Performance changed.

The Heath brothers describe what happened: "One of the reading exercises was a phonics card pack that the kids were supposed to go through as quickly as possible. The first day, when the brown-eyed kids were on the bottom, it took them 5.5 minutes. On the second day, when they were on top, it took 2.5 minutes. 'Why couldn't you go this fast yesterday,' Elliott asked. One blue-eyed girl said, 'We had those collars on...'"

Those children learned an indelible lesson in discrimination and its harrowing effects. How brilliantly Jane Elliott made the lesson come alive...and stick.

The Heaths discuss the six key qualities of an idea that is made to stick: simplicity (distilling an idea to its basics), unexpectedness (capturing people's attention), concreteness helping people understand your idea and remember it much later), credibility (getting people to believe your idea), emotional (getting people to care about your idea), and stories (getting people to act on your idea).

Their book is fun to read. And while it obviously has great application in our business, I couldn't help thinking how vital its application is in teaching. Wouldn't it be wonderful if those stand-out inspiring/motivating teachers were the rule, not the exception?

January 28, 2007

2007-01-28T18:30:00.000-05:00

Who's Got the Time?

Inc. magazine's latest cover heralds "the coolest new marketplace in the world." And it's Second Life.

I have a friend who has become engaged - no, I should say "engulfed" (and inevitably to be "engorged") by Second Life.

My question is, who has the time? And, by dedicating time to Second Life, what are they taking that time from? Their 'first life'? Hey, which is more important?

Am I the only one who can't find enough hours in the day? Stretch, plan, multi-task, get up even earlier, go to bed even later, discipline, discipline, discipline...whatever...and there's still not enough time. Are all Second Lifers slackers? No! I know my friend isn't. She's brilliant. But where is she stealing the time from?

Meanwhile, one entrepreneur - who calls himself Rathe Underthorn - has created an ad agency selling ads on Second Life to Second Life 'companies.' (So far, selling ads to 'real world' advertisers is not permitted by Linden Labs, the creator of Second Life. Underthorn reports that his ads have topped 1.2 million impressions already, and they're working. His revenue is in the range of around $400-$500, so he needs to keep his day job. But he reports that some of the Second Life company advertisers are earning as much as $60,000 a year. [Where do they find the time?!]

Could the time come when one can earn more in a 'second' life than a 'first'? Will virtuality replace the real thing? Or will they become fully integrated....and we'll see advertising on Second Life for virtual and real companies. Will we be able to tell the difference? Will there be one?

January 25, 2007

2007-01-25T22:32:00.000-05:00

Flagship Stores Define Image

Increasingly, we're seeing companies create flagship stores that define their image and entangle consumers into their clutches. The Apple Stores are current classics. And recently the Nokia Store in New York is the latest in these luscious branding tools. You can sit on a bar stool and use one of their phone/cameras to create a text message that appears on the wall, or you can take your own picture and print it out right there. The ambiance - complete with super design and music - is dripping in branding. And, yes, they'll sell you some product too...if you insist.

It's such a luxury to drop into a store that doesn't ostensibly try to be a store...it's an environment...it lives the brand...and you tear yourself away wishing that you were more of the brand too. I love these places. And the exercise of creating them is a great way to define one's brand. I'm thinking what a "store" for each of our clients might look like....and how it would reflect each brand and help bring it to life. Heck, if you can't do it for real, you can certainly do it in cyberspace.

Touchpoint Strategies

Soon you'll be driving onto New York's George Washington Bridge and see ads for Geico at the toll booths. We're going to see more turnstile ads...more ads on Chinese food take-out cartons...even ads on airline air sickness bags. Why? Because all of us marketers want to intercept people at the touchpoints of their lives...beyond traditional media. Well, not beyond traditional media...but in addition to them.

It always astounds me to discover how much is "for sale." We need to think about our customers' lifestyle and figure how we can intercept them along the way in behalf of our clients.

Chances Are....It's for Sale

January 22, 2007

2007-01-22T22:31:00.000-05:00

Selective News

I understand the concept (and appeal) of selective news: identify what categories of information interest you and only tap into them...typically on the Internet. But then what happens to the information that you didn't know interested you until you saw it?

I'm thinking of the way a newspaper is organized. We turn the pages, ostensibly looking for the issues that interest us...and then, along the way, we discover something we had no idea would either be there or appeal to us, and it opens up our eyes to an entirely new issue.

Do we lose that experience when we over-customize the information we receive? Do we dull our curiousity...narrow our horizons?

I cannot imagine life without a newspaper. Like Jay, its tactile nature appeals to me. And I especially enjoy the discovery of stuff I didn't know, didn't expect to see, and love learning about.

But I think that newspapers should consider zero-basing their content. The world of information has changed so dramatically since the heyday of newspapers. We've got radio, TV, and - most consequentially - the Internet. Newspapers have not changed accordingly. We now have a few national papers - USA Today, The New York Times - and then we have the metropolitan dailies...virtually all declining in circulation.

Imagine if you were creating a metropolitan daily from scratch today. What would that paper look like? What would its content be? To what extent would it customize its editions (by geography, area of interest, demographic profile, etc.)? How much international and national news would it include? What would make it most relevant to its metropolitan audience?

Importantly, how would it differ from what's being presently produced in your metropolitan market?

My guess is that it would differ substantially. Then the challenge is to go from here to there...or get ready for a slow and painful death.

I don't think that's an exercise that most newspapers have the guts to go through. And, if they do, they typically turn to people in their own industry to tell them how to solve the problem. My guess is that the solutions are going to come from outside the industry. And they're going to come. Like they say..."when the pupil is ready, the teacher arrives."

Combo Brands The Rage

Who doesn't like the Gap/Project Red promotion? After all, it's good stuff in a good looking campaign for a good cause.

And, it's more. It's co-branding at its best. Blending brands to add more uuumph to both.

Apple's iPod did it with Nike and BMW. Burger King did it with Sean "Diddy" Combs. And Target has done it with a bunch of big name designers.

Interesting exercise: who fits with your brand? What's their business? How could you leverage each other's muscle to create an even more powerful presence?

Not only does the exercise help you identify co-branding opportunities, it also helps you define more clearly to yourself precisely what your brand is and what it stands for.

January 20, 2007

2007-01-20T09:52:00.000-05:00

For Ida....

Where We Turn for Our News

We all know the Internet is increasingly important. But I'm always interested in specific research that tells us how important.

The Pew Internet Project recently reported that twice as many Americans used the Internet as their primary source of news about the 2006 campaign compared with the most recent mid-term election in 2002.

On an average day in August, 26 million Americans were using the Internet for news or information about politics!

Pew attributes the increase both to more attractive content and to more prevalent broadband access. More than three times as many Americans had broadband access in 2006 vs. 2002.

Here in Charleston, our mid-term election cycle was dominated by a hotly contested School Board race. A powerful group of five seasoned politicians called themselves The A Team, and were the odds-on favorites to sweep the election.

Their website? It was "under construction" during the entire campaign.

Meanwhile, their opponents made smart and aggressive use of the Internet.

Results? The A Team got trounced.

Project Share: Marketing's New Powerhouse

The Pew study also reports that 23% of those who used the Internet for political purposes actually created or forwarded online political commentary or politically-related videos.

Of course, this peer-to-peer communications is one of the most powerful phenomena in marketing today.

A recent survey reported that as recently as 2003, only 22% of respondents said they trusted a "person like yourself or your peer." That number is now up over 68%.

Friends and family are now the killer communicators...sharing info, videos, opinions, etc. like never before...and, in many cases, simply by-passing traditional ways of marketing.

It's key, then, to find ways to provide marketing materials and messages that are likely to be virally exchanged...like the Folger's coffee "morning" spot that I don't think ever made it out of YouTube but was viewed by millions.

So What's Up with "For Ida"?

I saw her last night ,and she told me she missed my blog; and I was so flattered that I'm gonna get back at it. How shallow am I?!!!

November 11, 2006

2006-11-11T16:27:00.000-05:00

"Think of a Card, Any Card"

I just read a book about a card sharp who taught himself to deal from the center of the deck. Needless to say, an undetected deal from the center of the deck is a very difficult maneuver! The technique which he devised required him to strengthen his fingers which were already very strong and nimble. He regularly pressed each finger against the wall and also put small balls between his fingers and then formed a fist. These exercised, along with many many hours of practice, enabled him to perfect the technique.

The book colorfully describes the 1920's and '30's world of card sharps and magicians. And, in doing so, it reveals the secrets behind many card tricks.

One (of many) that I never knew is that the most common way of knowing which card you've chosen when the magician says, "Think of a card, any card," is that the magician has actually shown you a card...but he does it so quickly that you don't realize he has done it...although you DO remember the card and that's the one you "think of."

Well, of course, this is an early example of product placement. The product is in the show...we don't necessarily notice it...but, when we set out to make a purchase decision, lo and behold we choose that product.

It's Vance Packard's Hidden Persuaders all over again!

Have It Your Way

Successful companies these days are providing ways for their customers to individualize their experience with the company's product or service. A great example is Crocs, those brightly colored synthetic shoes that have soared in sales (sales are expected to triple in '07, vs '05). The current issue of Business 2.0 has a good article on the company. Not only can customers buy their Crocs in a wide variety of colors, but now they can adorn their Crocs with Jibbitz, various plastic whatevers that fit into the holes of one's Crocs. Yet another way to have it YOUR way.

Makes me realize that if any company these days isn't giving their customers a way to individualize their experience, they are really missing the boat.

November 7, 2006

2006-11-07T17:48:00.000-05:00

Back from the Mountains

Delay in posts caused by business travel and then four days of hiking Vermont's 270-mile Long Trail. Typically at this time of year, the trail is covered in snow and not accessible to hikers. Not so this year. There was only a slight dusting of snow.

Winter's cold is not only arriving later in Vermont, it's also lasting a shorter length of time. Maple sugar season used to consistently start in March. Now it's more likely to start in February.

Between1816 and 1940, Lake Champlain froze over during all but six of those 124 years. In recent years, the lake hasn't frozen at all.

These are hard fact proofs of global warming in just one small piece of our precious planet.

There doesn't seem to be any sense of urgency about this issue from our federal government, so it seems to me that the action needs to be local. As we've written before, the answers are not very complex. It's only a matter of will and commitment...and that's something that we marketers ought to be able to catalyze. It's what we do.

Outside In

One of Steve Wynn's innovative ideas for his new Wynn Resort in Las Vegas was that instead of displaying its glamour and glitter on the outside (like the fountains in front of The Bellagio or the jungle in front of The Mirage), his new resort would present an austere exterior and save all the good stuff for when you came inside.

That's just what he's done, and it's a runaway success.

Now I read that the new Tysons Corner Center mall in McLean, Virginia is picking up on the Wynn idea and presenting rather anonymous facades of stores rather than traditional glass exposures.

As any seductress knows, what you don't show is often more tantalizing than what you do show. That seems to be the theory behind these stores, and people are really digging it.

People really enjoy discovery. They like to be surprised and engaged. And setting it all out there from the git go just doesn't adequately involve the customer. I'd say the Tysons Corner Center - like Steve Wynn- is really on to something.

October 29, 2006

2006-10-29T11:46:00.000-05:00

Not Our Finest Hour

Every couple of years, the business of advertising takes a nose dive. Because it's the political season. So, in the name of who-knows-what, advertising is created that is irresponsible, inaccurate, misleading, not credible, and the subject of wide-spread and totally justified criticism.

While much attention has been given to the "Call me, Harold" spot against Harold Ford in Tennessee, I'd say the prize goes to the one that spends 30 seconds accusing an incumbent of making a phone sex call and charging it to his state's taxpayers. What, in fact, occurred was that a staffer of the office holder mis-dialed a number by one digit, got connected to the sex line, and hung up. The call lasted only a matter of seconds. Some sex!

My home telephone number is only one digit off from a local hospital. It is not uncommon for me to receive hospital calls. What happened to that staffer is totally understandable.

There is no there there.

But that didn't stop his opponent from making a spot that isn't just misleading, it's inaccurate and potentially incredibly damaging to the candidate.

Frankly, I don't understand why the media cannot require comprehensive substantiation for any claims made in political advertising...and, why the media cannot then choose not to accept advertising that it deems not adequately substantiated in fact.

Sure that would put more work on the media. But they could require advertising meet earlier deadlines in order to allow time for the research to be done. And, let us not forget, the media make a pile of money on political advertising.

Proper due diligence would diminish significantly the black eye our industry gets every two years. And, as we slowly recover from the bruises, along comes the next election cycle.

More importantly, proper due diligence would help voters get more accurate, responsible information so that they could make informed, intelligent decisions. After all, we're talking about the future of the country...the future of the world.

October 25, 2006

2006-10-25T22:53:00.000-04:00

Being the Brand

Few brands have a more potent presence than Hermes. The look is distinctive; the design and packaging, impeccable. What began as a saddle maker in the 1830's has evolved to an almost-billion-dollar empire of fashion.

Like many high fashion companies, Hermes sells a perfume line. But, unlike virtually all others, they do so with their own in-house expert ("the nose," as the job title says) and they market the perfumes without any celebrity endorsements.

In Hermes's case, the nose is Jean-Claude Ellena. He recently described the company's non-celebrity marketing strategy by saying, "What we sell is a product line that is the result of a lived experience. You won't smell like Jennifer Lopez; you will be yourself. You might try other products, but you will always come back."

That "lived experience" notion resonates much more powerfully than the idea of smelling like the celebrity-du-jour. And, since Ellena joined Hermes in 2004, perfume sales have skyrocketed. It shows that helping people be themselves is a road to marketing success.

Design Matters...

For several years, the National Design Awards have been presented annually by the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York. This year, they added a new competition - the People's Design Awards - in which anyone could nominate anything for consideration.

The website (which is slightly irritating because it requires yet another version of Flash just to get in) was visited by more than 80,000 people which shows there's real interest in how things look in our world. And people nominated a wonderful array of products - from those legibly designed prescription bottles at Target to iPods to public sculpture (notably the work of Anish Kapoor who created the deliciously reflective "bean" in Chicago's Millennium Park and recently installed a piece on Fifth Avenue at New York's Rockefeller Center.

The strong response to the competition shows how important design is to people's every day lives.

...And So Does Being Green

The New York Times had a great piece today about magazines and advertisers wanting to be more green. Some major publishers are seeking ways to be carbon neutral. And some advertisers are requesting that publishers release information on their paper and printing sources so that they can estimate the total carbon emissions of their advertising and then offset those emissions by planting trees.

Aveda apparently sends sustainability surveys to publications to help decide where to place its ads. The surveys include questions about greenhouse emissions.

So we're seeing a three-way effort here. The public is pushing for more environmental responsibility among publishers. The publishers themselves are pushing for it. And so are the advertisers. Very encouraging.

October 24, 2006

2006-10-24T21:22:00.000-04:00

Normandy

A delay in posts has been caused by a trip to Normandy. It's a destination so rich in historical significance that it's almost overwhelming. Many aspects of the experience have great relevance to marketing and communications. I say that neither to diminish the significance of Normandy, nor to elevate the importance of our industry. It's only that parts of my experience there reminded me of the challenges of our work.

First, the physicality. We've all read about the invasion. We've all seen movies, (although some weren't really shot there...for example, with the exception of one scene that takes place in the American Cemetary, the entire movie of "Saving Private Ryan" was shot either on a sound stage or in Ireland).

Yet, regardless of what we've read and seen in movies, there is simply no substitute for being there...seeing the real thing. How true that always is. As marketers, we've always got to get the customer to try our product...to experience it, first hand.

Then, there's the boldness of the challenge. I think of this in terms of searching for solutions in the marketing challenges we face. Oh, certainly they pale against the extraordinary challenges the Allies faced. But don't the same rules apply?

For example, knowing that the Allies would need to get supplies and reinforcements after landing at Normandy, and recognizing that the turbulent seas would make this virtually impossible, Churchill conceived the idea of an artificial harbor...bringing a breakwater and docks piece by piece across the English Channel. Imagine the engineering challenge!

Churchill's communique to the appropriate officer was brilliantly succinct:

"Piers for Use on Beaches. They must float up and down with the tide. The anchor problem must be mastered. Let me have the best solution worked out. Don't argue the matter. The difficulties will argue for themselves."

Indeed. "Don't argue the matter. The difficulties will argue for themselves." Isn't that terrific advice when facing a knotty marketing challenge...how to differentiate a brand, how to break through the clutter, how to create a bond with your customers.

The British soldiers who landed at Arromanches (where that artificial harbor was created) had a simple motto: "Who dares, wins."

More good advice!

Plans for the invasion of Normandy were meticulous. But the weather (along with the extraordinary fortifications) disrupted them. Paratroopers landed way away from their targets. And some landing craft missed their marks by miles (notably the unit led by young Teddy Roosevelt). The opposition was absolutely awesome. The courage of the Allies is beyond imagining.

But it was more than courage. It was also ingenuity. Of course, these men were well trained. We tend to think of military training as learning to follow strict orders. I'm sure they learned all of that. But they also learned how to use their wits...how to improvise...how to reassemble often in ad hoc groups and creatively overcome the enemy. These are analogous challenges to those that we face in business. We want our associaties to be highly skilled and trained and disciplined. And, when plans get disrupted, we want them to be able to think for themselves and use their ingenuity. Blending creativity and discipline is a vital challenge in our line of work.

Finally, there was singleness of purpose. There was no equivocation. It wasn't a half-way initiative. It was carefully planned in service of a very specific goal, and everyone was very clear about that goal and passionately committed to it. How different that is from so many watered down efforts that try to accommodate a myriad of objectives, lacking focus...lacking adequate commitment of resources...lacking passion.

Beyond the awfulness of war, the deep craters, the permanent scars of destruction, the tens of thousands of silent graves...there is a powerful message of hope, a message of the possibilities of life when one is focused, daring, courageous, creative, and committed. "Today's sun," ends one poem chiseled along a wall, "dries yesterday's tears."

October 8, 2006

2006-10-08T20:56:00.000-04:00

The Twinkie Defense

Crisis communications is an integral part of our business. Something bad happens, and your client calls and asks how to handle it.

Whenever speaking about this kind of situation, professionals inevitably cite the Tylenol case and say how brilliantly the company handled it be addressing it head on, taking the product off the shelves, committing to securing the product before it was back on the shelves, and then living up to that commitment. Pretty straight forward.

While everyone agrees with the wisdom of that scenario, surprisingly few follow it.

The most preposterous defense used to be "the Twinkie defense," the classic case in which a criminal claimed that eating too many Twinkies hopped him up so much that he was driven to commit criminal acts.

The 21st century equivalent is the alcohol dependency defense. Regardless of the misdeed, everyone's rushing to rehab...and saying with a straight face that the liquor made them do it.

Who's advising them? Who do they think they're kidding?

Psychologists were asked where the despicable words Mel Gibson spoke came from. One noted expert replied, "His mouth."

But would Gibson cop to the fact that he had some real issues around his attitudes toward Jews? Oh no...he just said he had a drinking problem and needed rehab.

Ditto with that rotten egg Thomas Foley. His lawyer states emphatically, "He is not a pedophile. He's an alcoholic." OK...let me get this straight....I thought an alcoholic was someone who drank too much, and a pedophile was someone who hit on kids. Not much question as to which Foley was/is. So why doesn't he admit it and get treatment for the true illness, instead of hiding behind the pathetically weak rehab defense?

Whenever we're faced with these situations, we always have the same three-word answer to our clients: tell the truth.

No matter how painful or even despicable the truth is, it sure beats the alternative. And, oh how refreshing it is for people to hear.

Also, speaking the truth permits the problem to be solved directly, rather than trying to solve everything but the problem. Congress is now re-examining the page system. They're spending our tax dollars to do that. This has nothing to do with the page system. It has to do with one sick puppy and the fools who swept his sickness under the rug. Those fools aren't pages. They're elected officials, many of whom are up for re-election next month.

October 1, 2006

2006-10-01T17:14:00.000-04:00

The Vital Role of Design

Fast Company's annual design issue is always packed with great stories of individuals and companies that recognize the power of good design. This year's issue features an article describing the need to balance what the author calls "a value system premised on what's valid and one based on what's reliable."

A "reliable process" is one that is predictable and measurable. You identify what works, and you extrapolate it and/or replicate it.

Whereas a "valid process" - according to this author - "flows from designers' deep understanding of both user and context, and leads them to ideas they believe in but can't prove.

Any good company needs both...AND the leadership to recognize that need and have the ability to navigate through both value systems.

A good example is A.G. Lafley, the CEO of Proctor & Gamble. He loves numbers, but he is also persuaded by anecdotal customer research. And that has led to P&G introducing new products that could never have been produced by a purely "reliable process."

Theodore Levitt

One of our legendary professors at business school, Theodore Levitt, died this year. He leaves not only a legacy of legions of students whom he taught but also extensive writings on his chosen field, marketing.

The current issue of The Harvard Business Review includes exerpts from some of Levitt's articles.

Some of my favorite quotes (many of which were written as long as 45 years ago!):

"The relationship between a seller and a buyer seldom ends when a sale is made. Increasingly, the relationship intensifies after the sale and determines the buyer's choice the next time around.....It is not a matter of just getting and then holding on to customers. It is more a matter of giving the buyers what they want. Buyers want vendors who keep promises, who'll keep supplying and standing behind what they promised....During the era we are entering, the emphasis will be on systems contracts, and buyer-seller relationships will be characterized by continuous contacgt and evolving relationships to effect the systems. The 'sale' will not be just a system but a system over time. The value at stake will be be the advantages of that system over time."
...

"Services, delivery, reliability, responsiveness, and the quality of the human and organizational interactions between seller and buyer will be more important than the technology itself."
...
"One of the surest signs of a bad or declining relationship is the absence of complaints from the customer. Nobody is ever that satisfied, especially not over an extendid period of time. The customer is either not being candid or not being contacted - probably both."
...
"There is no such thing as a commodity. All goods and services are differentiable....On the commodities exchanges...what they 'sell' is the claimed distinction of their execution...In short, the offered product is differentiated, though the generic product is identical."
...

September 27, 2006

2006-09-27T22:10:00.000-04:00

What Would DeTocqueville Say?

When Alexis DeTocqueville came to America and wrote his classic Democracy in America in 1830, he lauded our nation's "associations," our ability to get together in groups to discuss and address a wide variety of issues. It was those associations that DeTocqueville thought truly distinguished our country.

Robert Putnam's important book, Bowling Alone, agrees with DeTocqueville's premise. Putnam coined the term "social capital," defined as the prevalence of these associations. And he argued that there has been a serious decline in social capital as people tend to live their lives much less connected to their fellow man. Hence, "bowling alone." Putnam says the decline has been very damaging to our nation's institutions such as education and healthcare. He makes a very compelling case.

Bowling Alone was written before the Internet explosion, and I wonder how Putnam would view the landscape today. He's still correct that according to his measurements of social capital there has been a decline. But what about all of the associations catalyzed by the Internet?

I'm thinking specifically of the affinity groups identified on MeetUp.com. Tonight I checked them out. There are 132 groups just here in the Charleston area. They range from expat Germans to vampire enthusiasts, from ghost trackers to Yorkshire terrier owners, from people interested in bunko to those interested in belly dancing.

I wonder what the consequence of all these associations are. And how are these associations different from the ones identified by DeTocqueville and Putnam?

I think it matters to marketers because we need to understand where consumers feel they belong. What do they feel a part of? How do they perceive their identity? How have their influencers changed? Is it different if you're connected to people in virtual space, rather than "real" space? Is there a different language, and are we marketers attuned to those differences?

Where is DeTocqueville when we need him?

September 24, 2006

2006-09-24T13:35:00.000-04:00

The Lessons of Lonelygirl

More than 2 million people watched Lonelygirl on YouTube.com. Many imagined that she was not what she represented she was, but they hung in there anyway...suspending disbelief, at least for the moment.

The enormous audience for Lonelygirl substantiates the theory that we live in not so much in a time of mega-hits, but rather in a time of many, many mini-hits. A fragmented marketplace that welcomes niche players and enables them to succeed very, very well.

The thought occured to me that what if half of Lonelygirl's audience paid $50 each for a full season of Lonelygirl episodes. Not such a far fetched idea. The revenue generated ($50 million) would be plenty to produce quite a series and quite a profit...with no advertisers. The series could be downloaded onto computers, iPods, whatever.

And couldn't this be the way we get much of our entertainment (and information) in the future? And where does that leave traditional advertising venues?

Naysayers will point out that this is the way movies are made...someone produces them (with no advertising) and people pay to see them. No, this isn't what I'm suggesting. I'm suggesting that the people pay upfront, saying that they want such-and-such a show and are willing to subcribe to it a priori. They get what they want, not what some Hollywood producer hopes they'll want.

There's more to Lonelygirl too. The "lie" of it. And that makes me wonder where we really do stand these days on matters of what's true and what's not. Does it matter to anyone? The lines are so blurred, what with reality shows that aren't reality and news that's not news. I read that the most trusted news person is Jon Stewart. He hosts a show that is fake news! A few years ago, Vice President Cheney chose to appear on a TV show hosted by Armstrong Williams to complain about bias in the press. Armstrong Williams, as we all know now, was a fake journalist on the government payroll!

Our business is communicating the truth about the products, services, companies and institutions we represent. How can we make our messages credible in this blurry environment?

I don't believe that regulation or any other top-down fiats will help. The weight-reduction ads show powerful testimonials from now-thin people, while the screen flashes "Results not typical." Does anyone think the disclaimer discourages purchase? And what about the disclaimers following pharmaceutical ads? Useless, in my opinion.

No, somehow it's got to come from the marketplace. I'm not sure how that will happen. I sure hope it does, and that we're all listening when it does.

September 20, 2006

2006-09-20T23:21:00.000-04:00

How Memory Affects Marketing and Communications

We all know how powerful our remembered experiences are and how deeply they inform our reactions to products and services. For example, hear the word "Coke," and each of us remembers childhood memories of that cool, refreshing, bubbly goodness. Successful marketing taps into positive memories and associations. After all, that's a lot of what branding is all about.

The same dynamic occurs with respect to people and events. We saw an extraordinary new play in London called Frost/Nixon. It's about the 1977 interviews that David Frost conducted with former President Nixon. Both men were at low points in their careers. Frost hoped to restore his career by getting Nixon to appear in four hour-long interviews, and he paid Nixon a very high fee in order to get him. Nixon figured that by agreeing to appear with Frost (whom he considered not to be a journalistic heavyweight) he could vindicate himself on a wide variety of issues and become once again a positive national leader.

Both Frost and Nixon were portrayed sympathetically, and I realized that had the play appeared much closer to the 1977 date, I would have brought too many strong feelings to it (especially about Nixon)...so that I would not have had adequate distance to appreciate each individual's perspective...the actual people and event would have been too close, with opinions and prejudices too sharp and raw.

Too close proximity to the actual event may have had a negative effect on two recent movies, Flight 93 and World Trade Center. They may have been released too soon after the actual event.

Daniel Mendelsohn makes this point in a fascinating article in The New York Review of Books.

He tells the story of a play called The Capture of Miletus, by a Greek playwright called Phrynichus. The play appeared only two years after Miletus was brutally occupied by the Persian emperor Darius. The audience wept uncontrollably. Mendelsohn reports that "it quickly became evident that it was still too soon to turn history into drama." As a result, Phrynichus was fined, and further performances of the play were banned forever.

The issue of when we have adequate distance from events to consider them in some reasonable perspective and appreciate their nuances as well as their impacts is intriguing. It's all tied to the issue of what collective emotional baggage we carry with us.

As marketers and communicators, we do not speak to blank slates. We speak to individuals with deep reservoirs of experience and emotion. And being respectful of that, understanding that, and tapping into it constructively is a wonderfully exciting challenge.

September 19, 2007

2006-09-19T21:09:00.000-04:00

Amaze Your Friends!

Ask your friends these questions:

"Netflix offers about 35,000 film titles. What percent of those titles do you think get rented at least once a quarter?"

"Of the top 100,000 books sold on Amazon, what percent do you think they sell at least once a quarter?"

If your friends are into "conventional wisdom," they might answer 20%. After all, conventional wisdom says that 20% of any universe of products generates 80% of the sales.

But the true answer is 95% for Netflix and 98% for Amazon. That's right: 95% of the 35,000 different film titles at Netflix get rented at least once per quarter.

And that's because - thanks to online distribution and retail - we have moved from the world of scarcity into the world of abundance. We have moved from a small handful of hits dominating the market place to a modicum of hits followed by an extraordinary abundance of successful also-rans. Chris Anderson details the phenomenon in his interesting book, The Long Tail.

The title refers to the graph of sales in companies like Netflix, Amazon, Rhapsody, iTunes, and so many other companies that sell online. There's a big bump at the beginning of the graph representing "best sellers." But then there's a very long tail of smaller quantity sales of many, many, many more items.

Consider books: In 2004, more than 1.2 million different book titles were sold. Only 32 sold more than 500,000 copies, while 948,005 of them sold fewer than 100 copies. That's a very long tail!

Thanks to new technologies and online selling, it is now possible to cost-effectively print books and CD's on demand, thereby diminishing inventory costs. This means it's so much easier to bring new products to the market place and, therefore, products and product choices have become so much more abundant.

Is it overwhelming? Well, it can be. Anderson sums up what he calls "the secret to creating a thriving Long Tail business" with two imperatives: 1. Make everything available. 2. Help me find it.

It's that second imperative that is our challenge as marketers. Among other things...

I think we need to make site navigation as logical and easy-to-follow as possible. By now, that should be easy. But I am stunned every day as I get caught up in the frustration of navigating through some site that is more about the designers than the users.

We need to be creative in creating aggregators and filters that profile a customer's preferences so we can expeditiously direct them to the products and services that will interest them the most.

We need to find ways to get product choices into the market place through influencers, bloggers, sampling situations, etc.

September 18, 2006

2006-09-18T22:18:00.000-04:00

Theming

Perhaps catalyzed by the onslaught of customization, there seems to be a whole lot more theming going on.

For example, weddings used to be - well - weddings. Simple ceremonies followed by lovely parties celebrating the bride and groom. Now they are frequently themed with so many bells and whistles that the honored couple ends up playing only a bit part. The theme becomes the star.

Turner Classic Movies just announced a new theming initiative: a joint promotion with Architectural Digest magazine. In October, this wonderful cable movie channel will promote a collection of 19 movies relating to architecture. The series will be called Architecture in Film and feature pictures like The Fountainhead and Towering Inferno.

In London, I noticed that the Tate Gallery (the original Tate, not the new Tate Modern) has what looks like about 20 different brochures in a rack promoting a series of themed, self-guided tours through the museum. The titles are great fun: "The First Date Tour," "The Animal Lovers Tour," "The 'I'm Feeling Depressed' Tour," etc. You get the idea.

It was not only a clever way to customize visits to an attraction, but it could also work just as well in other contexts like hotels and resorts. Instead of offering only a handful of packages, a hotel or resort could use its website to offer many, many customized experiences that would require only modest tweaks in what is already easily available. And the wide range of experiences would help promote more repeat visitation. Suppose you stayed at a beach resort one year and enjoyed the "bird lovers" package...came back next time for the "photographers" package...etc.

The web provides a venue to offer so many more choices to our customers. Organized properly, a site can enable someone to explore a wide range of options and drill down into those of greatest interest. For us marketers, I see this as an opportunity to provide so much more...to be more creative in packaging, and to offer many more packages...not worrying if only a few will want one package or another, because the incremental selling cost is negligible.

Theming gives us a chance to offer more choice, more varied experiences, and more fun.

September 17, 2006

2006-09-17T22:52:00.000-04:00

Hiatus

Alas, there has been a two-month hiatus in my blog. No real excuse, except that summer felt like a good time to give it a rest and do more contemplating than communicating.

My sense is that there were no cataclysmic changes in our industry. The trends toward new and alternative media, audience fragmentation, and customized messages and media certainly continued. A new study by McKinsey reported that by 2010 traditional TV advertising will be only one-third as effective as it was in 1990: a 37% drop in message impact, 23% fewer ads being seen, a 15% decline in buying power, due to cost-per-thousand rate hikes, and a 9% drop in ad focus because more viewers are multi-tasking.

These are not new challenges, but they will certainly separate the smart and creative thinkers from everyone else.

The summer also brought the London terrorist raid, which provided a particular challenge to airport shops that profit greatly from selling cosmetics, perfumes, and liquor...all products presently banned as carry-on in airplanes.

Now many of the stores are scrambling to figure out ways to ship your purchases. And some clever marketers are taking wise advantage of the situation. For example, Proctor and Gamble donated "smile packs" of toothpaste, mouthwash and floss of Avis to leave on the front seats of its rental cars. Every challenge provides an opportunity!

Wal-Mart stayed in the news all summer, too. Disappointing sales results, store redesign plans, the decision to adjust store product offerings to reflect the variances from one market to another, wage wars, etc. kept the drums beating.

Yesterday, I was watching a documentary about D-Day in which someone pointed out the fact that American troops were trained to take more individual initiative than their counterparts. Confronted with an unplanned set of circumstances, they were more likely to be creative and pro-active, while others who had been more rigidly trained would wait to receive new orders from on high.

And that reminded me of the story of the train wreck near a Costco store, and how the Costco employees rushed out and played such a vital role in saving the passengers. They took great initiative, as that was part of their training at a company whose culture seems to be the antithesis of Wal-Mart. You get as good as you give. That's always been the case...and it always will be.

July 2, 2006

2006-07-02T15:24:00.000-04:00

Seem as You Want to Be

That's always good advice.

And a great example of that advice in action is Gamal Aziz's makeover of the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

Aziz apparently has a unique strategy for looking at businesses. He imagines what they could do, under the optimum circumstances. He characterizes the difference between what they are doing and what they could be doing as their loss. And then he alters them to conform to the model that has produced the idealized returns, and - voila - he "cuts his losses."

He took top floor suites that were being comped to high rollers, converted them into a super-high-end hotel within a hotel, and sells them now to c-level executives coming to Las Vegas for conventions. The result is a 90% revenue increase, and 32% profit increase.

He converted the hotel's theater from an EFX Showroom to a high-tech Cirque du Soleil venue, thereby increasing revenue 500% and profit 3,583%.

He even upgraded a salon, bringing in a celebrity stylist, and increased revenue 40% and profit 23%.

Who do you want to be? What's the market to whom you want to appeal? What'll it take to attract them? Most of us look at life that way, but we try to accomplish our goals by making incremental improvements to what we've got. What Aziz does is much more dramatic (and, perhaps, more risky). But it's aspirational and visionary. And it demonstrates the power of "seem as you want to be."

Five Degrees of Separation

An electrician I know has a gadget that he can point at a light fixture and identify its temperature. The other day he pointed it at two cars that were parked next to one another on the sunlit side of a street. One car was black; the other, white. The temperature on the black car was 22 degrees warmer than the temperature on the white car. That's quite a difference!

And it demonstrates that one of the ways in which we can control temperature is as simple as the colors we wear or use.

Twenty-two degrees sounds like a lot.

So, five degrees may not sound like much.

But a fascinating article in The New York Review of Books by Jim Hansen (Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Adjunct Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University's Earth Institute) points out that if we continue what Hansen refers to as "business-as-usual," we can expect an increase of about five degrees Fahrenheit of global warming during this century.

Not significant? Guess again!!

Hansen notes that the last time the Earth was five degrees warmer was three million years ago, when the sea level was about 80 feet higher.

Fifty million people in the U.S. live below that level. In other words, with a five degree warming of the Earth, we would lose most East Coast cities: Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, and Miami. Practically all of Florida would be under water.

The consequences are extraordinary. You could say "beyond imagining, " but they aren't beyond predicting quite accurately.

So, what's this have to do with marketing and communications? Everything.

The solutions to our environmental challenges are well known. They simply are not well heeded.

What's needed is will...and effective marketing and communications.

Could there ever be any greater use of our skills? And has there ever been more urgency to put them to use in service of this one enormous challenge that is staring us right now in the face? If we don't act now, it will be too late.

June 19, 2006

2006-06-19T21:22:00.000-04:00

Spoleto Success

Spoleto Festival USA has recently concluded its 30th season in Charleston, and the Festival enjoyed record box office revenues and generally rave reviews.

There are many components to Spoleto's success. One is certainly context. That is, if many of the Festival's individual events were presented on their own, attendance would not be very strong. But, offered together, in the context of the entire Festival, these events sold extraordinarily well.

It's a wise reminder of the importance of context in all marketing and communications. Our media people are as interested in the program and time placement of a spot as they are in the time period's probable rating. The same obviously goes for a well-placed article or a presence on various websites.

Who are we going to be with? What's the context of our message? And how can we enhance the impact of our message by complementing it in other media or in other ways?

I just read that the new Alka Seltzer spot (with Kathy Griffin reprising the evergreen "Try it, you'll like it" ad concept) will appear on Alka Seltzer's website...along with a bunch of out-takes...which should be very good fun, and help sell the product.

"One offs" simply don't fly any more. Context is everything. Spoleto understands that, and the programming is a brilliant blend, especially well integrated this year as - for example - orchestral concerts reflected themes from operas and the theater.

The arts can teach us a lot...even about marketing.

The Baggage We Bring

We all look at products and people and (probably) situations with prejudice...pre-judgments.

You look at a bottle of Coca-Cola, and you remember a particular time you enjoyed its rich, sparkling taste...probably as a child.

Or you look at actor Jason Alexander, and it's difficult not to imagine him as George Costanza.

We jump to conclusions. We project.

The other day, President Bush chided a Los Angeles Times reporter at a news conference. The reporter, who was wearing sunglasses, sought to ask the President a question. "Are you going to ask that question with shades on?" asked the President. The reporter offered to take them off, but the President chided him again: "I'm interested in the shade look, seriously."

It turns out that the reporter has Stargardt's disease, which is a degenerative disease causing blindness, and sunlight can be especially painful for him.

Ooops.

As marketers, we're challenged to understand and appreciate the prejudices our customers and prospects bring to the table. And then we need to craft our messages not to combat those prejudices but rather to gracefully acknowledge and disarm them. Tricky business.

This Week's "Just Shoot Me" Award...

...goes to People Magazine for its profitable gamble paying $4.1 million (or whatever it was) for the 'first' photos of Bradjolina's baby. The combination of a 50-cent cover price premium and increased sales of the issue provided People with more than $3.5 million in additional revenue. And just consider the free publicity they got.

Eleven million children will go to bed hungry in America tonight.

They are not the only ones here who are starved.

June 13, 2006

2006-06-13T22:44:00.000-04:00

Managing Expectations

A friend tonight was telling us about her son who is at a five-week college summer school designed for incoming freshmen whom the college wants to consider more closely before absolutely positively granting them admission this coming fall.

There are a total of ten students in the program. What a great opportunity for the students to get to know the college and become the first positive advocates in their freshman class.

But the college seems to have botched that opportunity.

They neglected to provide any orientation. They didn't get the ten students together and let them get to know one another. They didn't tell the students what's expected of them...and what they can expect. They didn't tell them about the various logistics of life...even such basics as what dining halls are open and when.

Managing expectations is one of the most important roles of an effective communications program.

Nationally, the frustration with the administration may have been caused less by the war itself than by the fact that we were told three years ago that the mission was accomplished.

Locally, there's a good restaurant here with good food and lousy service. I'm wondering if the lousy service - which has been consistently bad since the restaurant opened a few years ago - isn't the function of some limitation on space or equipment. I can't believe that it's a function of human error, as that would have been remedied a long time ago. So, suppose they can't afford to fix the problem. Well, then, they should manage the customers' expectations by telling them that it takes a while to prepare their food, and then - for example - they could provide some small already-prepared plates in between courses. One way or another, they've got to manage people's expectations.

At Disney attractions, where there are waits for certain rides, there are signs advising you how long your wait is going to be. Except that Disney always adds five minutes to the actual wait.

So, if the sign says that your wait is 40 minutes, it's likely to be only 35. You get to the front of the line "five minutes early", and you're a very happy camper. It's that simple.

People in our business are often tempted to over-promise. And there's nothing more dangerous. They want to please our clients, so they say they'll do something in an unreasonably short amount of time, or for an unreasonably low amount of money...and all they're doing is hurting themselve, their client, and their relationship.

Several years ago, we helped an 8,000-employee institution communicate to its employees the necessary downsizing that was about to take place and put more than 3,000 people out of work.

We instituted a series of contexts in which managers and employees communicated with one another. There was straight talk. And there were no surprises. Everyone was treated straight up. The communications systems we instituted there are still in place today. And the workforce is more enthusiastic, proud, and productive than ever before.

We can all think of situations in which our expectations have been managed well. And we can think of the opposite, as well. But how are we doing?

June 12, 2006

2006-06-12T23:01:00.000-04:00

Adding Impact to E-Mails

Podcasts are a new way to embellish e-mails and give them an added oomph. Suppose you're a New Orleans hotel e-mailing past guests to tell them how you're up and ready to welcome them post-Katrina. Wouldn't it be great to include a podcast of classic New Orleans jazz...perhaps with a message or two about the hotel and the destination?

And, on the subject of iPods...the other day I read that iPods are considered the coolest thing by college kids. Ranking slightly behind iPods were beer (!) and Facebook.com (which we recently wrote about). Quite amazing...when one considers that neither iPods nor Facebook.com existed five years ago.

Organic Food Wars

There's been a real rush on organic food, thanks to the success of Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, etc. and the increasing interest in our environment and natural resources. While organics are still a relatively small portion of overall food sales ($20 billion out of a trillion dollars), the trend is clear. And the biggest news is that Wal-Mart is going to be selling organic foods...and doing so at prices only 10% higher than non-organic products. Typically, organic foods cost 50% more.

This may seem like good news, and - in a way - perhaps it is. But that depends what your definition of "is" is.

The murkiness lies in the definition of organic. Most of us think that organic milk, for example, should come from farm cows that are grazing on grass that has not been treated with pesticides. The truth is that many agribusiness companies are setting up 5,000-head dairies, often in the desert. The cows stand around in a dry lot and eat organic grain that results in a milk with poor nutritional value.

This past year, the Organic Trade Association worked hard to get Congress to agree to make it easier to include synthetic ingredients in products labeled organic.

So there's a lot of funny business going on in agribusiness. Not only is the definition of organic up for grabs, but you've also got to wonder how Wal-Mart will be able to come in at those prices. For example, will their suppliers need to resort to soil depletion and pollution in order to meet Wal-Mart's cost demands?

Wal-Mart's entry into organic foods will no doubt increase interest and demand for them. But I wonder whether when consumers start to get better educated about organic food whether they will not be comfortable with the practices of Wal-Mart's suppliers and the loose definitions of the word organic. I wonder whether then consumers will turn to (or simply stick with) the grocery stores they trust and know and feel have a true commitment to them - great stores like the Piggly Wiggly stores we are so proud to represent. When lots of folks are bandying around a term like organic and giving it a lot of different meanings, one tends to turn to the people one trusts. And that's where - once again - the bond a store has with its customers transcends price cutting, "hot deals" and all the flash and dash of shallow everyday commerce.

June 4, 2006

2006-06-04T13:48:00.000-04:00

Primal Branding

Many books and articles identify the attributes they consider essential to successful companies. I always find them interesting, and - selfishly - inevitably analyze how many of those attributes pertain to our company and the companies with whom we work.

Primal Branding, by Patrick Hanlon, claims that when products or services have seven "pieces of code" they become a meaningful part of our culture. The seven pieces of code are the creation story, the creed, the icons, the rituals, the pagans (or nonbelievers), the sacred words, and the leader.

According to Hanlon, a creation story is not a strategy. It provides context, and meaning. Think of Hewlette and Packard working in their garage, or Henry Ford producing the very first assembly line automobiles.

The creed is what defines a company. Think of Starbuck's seeking to be "the third place" (the other two being home and office), or Barnes & Noble saying "We do important work." Sometimes the creed can also be a company's slogan: i.e., Just Do It...or Think Different.

The icons may be a company's logo...or even a sound, taste, or smell. Or touch: consider the shape of the handle on all OXO tools.

The rituals are the ways in which a company makes more distinct and memorable the repeated points of contact between themselves and their guest, customers, client, or target market. For example, Wal-Mart enriches the experience of entering their stores simply by the presence of greeters. The idea is to develop rituals that make the mundane experience become exciting and reinforce the brand.

Part of saying who you are and what you stand for is also declaring who you are not and what you don't stand for. That's what "the pagans (or nonbelievers)" is all about.

For example, people who drink Starbucks aren't going to be satisfied with Folger's instant.

I think this is an important point, because so often companies try to be all things to all people...reluctant to give up any portion of the market...and thereby becoming nothing special..and standing for nothing special. And not doing well!

The sacred words are the words that people need to learn to become insiders in a company's culture. Having learned those words, people feel a real sense of belonging. They develop a bond with the brand. And that's enormously valuable. For example, people who "belong" at Starbucks understand the difference between a "tall" and a "grande." Or think about all the special word references on Seinfeld. Or the "words" kids use in instant messaging.

Finally, Hanlon writes that all successful belief systems have a person who is the catalyst, the risk taker, the visionary, the iconoclast who set out against all odds to re-create the world according to their own sense of self, community, and opportunity.

The leader can be the founder (like Branson, or Disney, or Edison)...or a strong individual who takes their place (like Welch, or Eisner).

It's always helpful to step back and think about what makes a company successful. As I consider the companies we're fortunate enough to work with, most have many - if not all - of Hanlon's attributes. And, in cases where all seven attributes are not clearly evident, it's often a case of the attribute being there but it not being adequately developed and communicated. That's an opportunity.

May 31, 2006

2006-05-31T22:17:00.000-04:00

Yet Another Ad Venue

I never thought there would be ads in movie theaters. Lots of people proposed ads there, but - to me - that was something that should and would never happen.

Of course, I was wrong.

And it absolutely never occured to me that there would be ads in legitimate theaters. But, here I am, wrong again.

An tourist organization called Visit London is staging commercials in a few theaters in New York. The actors perform both in the audience and on stage.

I also notice in New York that there are billboard ads way up in the sky. That is, when you're in a tall office building - say, on the 30th or 40th floor - and you look out the window, you're very likely to see (at your eye level) an ad placed on a nearby skyscraper.

Every space is for rent!

Issue One: The Environment

More and more, I think we're going to see the issue of the environment (and natural resources) dominate communications...whether it's political dialogue, entertainment, news, or just plain marketing.

Companies that are "green" are going to have a powerful selling point, and they should certainly be smart enough to promote it aggressively. Those that are not should look for ways to change and get attention for that change.

Same for communities. I heard on the radio today that some community in South Carolina (I can't remember which one) is converting its trucks to bio diesel. Any community that takes initiatives like that is bound to benefit.

I know that it's always fashionable to knock Al Gore. But the documetary about his speech on global warming is supposed to be incredibly compelling. One critic wrote that, "I can't think of another movie in which the display of a graph elicited gasps of horror, but when the red lines showing the increasing rates of carbon-dioxide emissions and the corresponding rise in temperatures come on screen, the effect is jolting and chilling."

Smart marketers will encourage their companies to go green and promote the fact...not only for their own survival, but for the planet's.

May 23, 2006

2006-05-23T23:03:00.000-04:00

Freedom of the Press

Our business - and our country - depends upon the press being free...able to cover stories thoroughly and accurately.

So it's concerning to hear that our government has been monitoring media telephone calls...not listening in on the calls, but tracking them. That obviously makes it very difficult for the media to protect sources, and that - in turn - may discourage some individuals from providing information to the media.

In many ways, despite our technological advances, it's increasingly difficult to find out what's going on in the world. Major news organizations are under budget pressure because of the competitive landscape...so they close bureaus or cease to cover important stories in out-of-the-way places. Our own government has put unprecedented restrictions on what can be covered in the Iraq war. And now we are faced with reporters' phone records being watched.

All of this makes last year's movie "Good Night, and Good Luck" more relevant than ever. And so is its subject matter...Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Tom Wicker has written a new book on McCarthy, tracing his career and trying to reckon with how his "phenomenon" occurred. McCarthy preached fear of Communism, and he frequently held up papers claiming they contained the names of known Communists in the State Department.

Sometimes he said there were 205 names on the list...sometimes, 57....sometimes, 81. In point of fact, he never unearthed a single Communist in the State Department.

But he scared the heck out of everyone. For example, the Voice of America dismissed 830 employees under McCarthy's threats.

McCarthy was a compulsive liar. His first opponent was 66 years old. McCarthy said the man was 73...then he said he was 89. He said that he had ten pounds of shrapnel in his leg, but the truth was that he had injured his leg falling off a ladder at a shipboard party.

How could the country get so intimidated by such a fellow as McCarthy? Wicker says that after World War II we were "bound inevitably to triumph" and that we felt that the only way we could fail was if there were subversives in high places. More importantly, he points out that in times of stress, we often turn to fear. And McCarthy "invoked the insecurity that could so easily afflict the American psyche - the dark unease."

Could that dynamic be playing out post 9/11, and could we be allowing it to cause us to look the other way at phone logs being monitored and other possible restrictions on the freedom of the press?

May 22, 2006

2006-05-22T21:17:00.000-04:00

Me, Me, Me, Me, Me

Personalization is rampant. "My Coke." "My Way." "My This and That...etc."

Apple has sold more than 8 million video downloads since it began offering them last October.

Eight million Americans maintain their own blogs.

MySpace has more than 50 million registered users. And eBay has almost 80 million.

Murdoch's News Corp paid $580 million for MySpace. And NBC recently bought iVillage (aimed at women) for $600 million.

All of these personalized media experiences provide extraordinary advertising opportunities.

I recently read the fascinating story of Mark Zuckerberg, creator of the Facebook websites that have proliferated on college campuses throughout the country.

In 2005, Facebook was the second-fastest-growing major site on the Internet. (behind MySpace)

Facebook has about 7 1/2 million registered members.

What's distinctive about Facebook is that you can control who sees your information. That is, you can block some information from anyone other than certain friends or groups of friends. Your choice. Fascinating. And a whole new level of opportunity in the Interactive world.

What's With "The Code?"

Reviewers say "The Da Vinci Code" bites. So do friends. One friend told me it was the worst movie he ever saw. Yet, the movie had a killer first weekend. Will viewers not go, once the word of mouth spread? Or will 100 million curious readers want to see how the book translates to the screen, no matter how boring it is?

The Sony pre-opening marketing was brilliant. They hired a marketing consultant who specializes in making the connection between the Hollywood community and the Christian communty. And the Christian community isn't just the Falwells of the world. No, there are apparently a small handful of well-regarded Christian bloggers will commensurate power. And this guy knew how to reach them all with his finely tuned strategy of "engagement."

Get people talking about the film, not trying to boycott or ban it...simply discussing the issues it raises. So, he created a site called "The Da Vinci Dialogue," with essays by religious leaders and a very civilized discourse on the issues and "facts" in the book. It was a way to get people engaged and intriqued...a real "people are talking about" kind of site. And, boy, did it work!

May 15, 2006

2006-05-16T00:10:00.000-04:00

Marketing Job Opportunities

A major non-profit I know of recently needed to find an interim president while searching for a permanent replacement for the departing president. They identified their ideal prospect, recruited him aggressively, and he agreed to take the job.

They did a great job convincing the candidate...but they never spoke to his wife.

And, even after he accepted the job, she raised so many objections that he had to turn down the offer he had already accepted.

That's a pretty substantial oversight for a major institution, and it reiterates the importance of marketing a job opportunity not only to the candidate but also to the individuals who are most important to the candidate...typically spouses, children, and sometimes parents.

My nephew was offered a job in California. His children didn't want to leave the east coast. But, when he brought them out to see his prospective employer, that company paired the kids up with same-age children of other employees...and everyone became enthusiastic about the move.

Common sense. But isn't it amazing when even major institutions overlook what is so obvious?

Another important component of recruiting employees is understanding what is most important to your current employees. Chances are that those same attributes will resonate with prospects. I was interested when we discovered (through an exercise at a company retreat) that many of our associates were attracted to Charleston because of the water. We've got 65 miles of beaches in Charleston County...but I always imagined that people viewed Charleston as an historic city, without focusing especially on its ocean-side location. I was wrong, and now we make more of a point of emphasizing Charleston being on the ocean.

May 11, 2006

2006-05-11T22:44:00.000-04:00

"Family Table" Initiative Produces Results

Working with MTV Networks' TV Land and Nick at Night, we created a pro-social initiative called Family Table. The concept was to encourage more families to share meals together. Research shows that there are all kinds of benefits of families eating together. They include better eating habits (diet) and fewer problems with substance abuse and delinquency.

We launched the initiative a couple of years ago. It was played out in on-air spots, promotions, and extensive publicity.

It's so encouraging to see various reports that indicate our success.

For example, the Orlando Business Journal recently reported that a growing number of families - 32% of 1,000 adults surveyed nationwide - are trying to eat dinner together at home more often. That number jumps to 50% for younger households (age 28-41) and 47% for Hispanic and African-American households.

These and other encouraging reports are not necessarily the result solely of the Family Table initiative. But they remind us how powerful the media are, and how - when used to address an important public issue - they really can make a difference.

MTV Networks has been exemplary in the pro-active way in which it has identified issues and put significant resources behind addressing them. We're proud to be associated with this great company.

Online Advertising Stable and Growing

The numbers continue to be impressive. But what's especially impressive is the fact that the big advertisers are making solid commitments to online advertising. Advertisers like Proctor & Gamble, for example. And others like Ford, General Motors and Absolut Vodka are expected to spend as much as 20% of their ad budgets online this year.

Online advertising is expected to increase 24.4% this year, while all other media spending is projected to increase only 4.2%.

Within online advertising, search is the big winner. Search advertising accounts for 40% of the total online ad spending in this country. No wonder Microsoft 'bet the farm' on AdCenter, which it introduced last week.

The growth is caused not only by the fact that more advertisers are getting on board with online, but also we're seeing advances in technology that enable advertisers to measure response and results much more meaningfully. That's because online advertisers can target ads based upon location, demographics and other factors much more precisely than any other media.

It's wonderfully encouraging to see online advertising stabilize. This is now a vital medium that will become an increasingly productive part of any responsible marketing and communications program. It is essential, of course, to use it contextually with all other initiatives.

May 9, 2006

2006-05-09T23:02:00.000-04:00

Going Overboard with Lifestyle Touchpoint Marketing

We're big fans of Lifestyle Touchpoint Marketing...communicating with people at multiple touchpoints in their lives, whether it's an ad on a pizza box or a display at the doctor's office.

But hotels.nl, an online reservations service in Holland, may have gone too far when they placed waterproof blankets (with the company's logo) on the backs of grazing sheep. The mayor of Skarsterlan, a small Dutch town, certainly thought so. He fined the company 1,000 Euros (about $1,300)/day.

Meanwhile....

A new, small European rental car company can lease cars for as low as $230/month, because the vehicles are covered with advertising and include a GPS tracking device that help provide estimates of how many eyeballs each car reaches.

Marketing the Stars

The Hollywood star system used to package and protect the stars so that their image would be precisely that which the studios sought. A great example of this system is an essay about Natalie Wood by John Gregory Dunne in the recently published book of his non-fiction writing. It's called "Regards," and it's one of the most enjoyable books I've read in a long time.

The Hollywood studios wanted to be sure that the off-screen image of their stars was consistent with their on-screen image. And they managed everything from what the stars said to where they went and even whom they married. They were, in fact, "protecting the brand" of each star.

That's become more challenging these days, as the studios no longer control the talent...and too many stars won't admit that their off-screen persona will most certainly affect their on-screen success. (Think Woody Allen.)

Recently, Tom Cruise's off-screen activities have garnered a lot of press, not all of it positive. Some critics speculated that it colored the way they felt about his latest movie: "Mission Impossible: III." Indeed, opening weekend grosses for the movie were much less than hoped for. Perhaps audiences agreed.

May 8, 2006

2006-05-08T22:47:00.000-04:00

The Power of the Idea

There has been an incredible amount of coverage of the new addition to The Morgan Library and Museum in New York.

The Morgan began as the private library of financier Pierpont Morgan. His library was built between 1902 and 1906, adjacent to his New York residence at Madison Avenue and 36th Street. That building was designed by the legendary Charles McKim, of the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White.

In 1928, an Annex building was built on the corner of the block. And, in 1988, an adjacent mid-19th-century brownstone was added to the complex.

Finally, in 1991 a garden court was constructed to unite the various elements of the Library and Museum.

By the late '90's it became clear that the Morgan needed much more space. A competition was held, and three architectural firms were selected from many who applied, and those three were invited to provide more detailed proposals of how they would add space to the Morgan.

When the selection committee reviewed the proposals, they didn't feel that any of the designs hit the nail on the head. So they turned to Renzo Piano, now one of the world's busiest and most highly acclaimed architects. Piano had refused to participate in the competition for the job.

When Piano met with the committee, he did not bring any designs. He simply brought ideas.

He described those ideas...how he would create "a village" for the Morgan, how he would build down below the street level, "burying" the great treasures of the Morgan, and how he would unite the Morgan's disparate buildings.

Hearing that story, I was reminded of the way in which Frank Gehry won the competition for the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. Gehry's designs were little more than "chicken scratches." But his ideas were so powerful, that he - too - immediately won the assignment.

All too often, we dress up mediocre ideas. They look better. Then we dress them up some more. They look even better. But, if they're not powerful at the core...if they don't resonate when they're not all dressed up, then we're missing the mark.

Renzo Piano's solution for the Morgan is one of the most creative, elegant, envigorating spaces I've ever seen. For those who don't believe that contemporary design can effectively complement traditional buildings, you need to see this one. And, if you want to see how a powerful idea can transform not only a space but also an institution, rush to Madison Avenue at 36th Street in New York and feast your eyes.

April 10, 2006

2006-04-10T22:09:00.000-04:00

Nikki, congratulations on getting Skirt! up in Atlanta. Tomorrow, the world!!

Design Matters

Business 2.0 presents its annual Design Awards, and it's compelling to see how much good design affects the bottom line.

For example, we have praised before the easy-to-read labels on Target's prescription drug bottles. Well, they helped Target's prescription drug sales jump 14% last year.

And how 'bout the iPod? There are several other MP3 players out there, but iPod's original design is not only great, but its Nano model - a little bit lighter and smaller - has gone gangbusters...with the result that Apple sold 14 million iPods during the last quarter of '05, vs. 4.5 million the comparable quarter one year earlier.

One of the most ingenious designs is the M&M innovation enabling customers to choose their own colors and messages. Go on the website, and you can choose from 21 colors and each individual M&M holds two lines of text at eight characters each. "Have it your way," for the sweet tooth set.

And how's it working? Online revenues are up 400%.

Don't Bet on It

"Fan" - as in "fanatic" - applies probably more to sports enthusiasts than any other constituency. Sports fans know their stuff. They know the stats, the odds, and - often - the outcomes.

But only 4 people out of 3 million ESPN viewers who predicted the Final Four teams got it right. And none of more than 2 million CBS viewers who logged on with their predictions got it.

It just goes to show that anything can happen. And nothing should ever be counted out.

Creating Homes with Women in Mind

The number one way women choose to relax is taking a bath. Spas are all over the place, and hotels and resorts now feature lavish bathrooms, often with a great view from the bath tub. Now builders are increasingly including large bathrooms in their apartments and houses...often they're as large as kitchens.

And, instead of marketing homes by showing the living room or master bedroom, smart realtors are including photos of the big, luxurious bathrooms.

A good example of knowing your audience and speaking to their needs.

We've passed through obsessions with kitchens...and now bathrooms. What's next?

March 22, 2006

2006-03-22T22:06:00.000-05:00

Feel Good TV

Tonight's the TV Land Awards, and there's certainly something wonderfully comforting about this cable channel that plays the best of the classic TV series. If you've been biting your nails over Jack Bauer on Monday nights, TV Land is the perfect antidote.

But TV Land isn't just about classic TV shows. The channel also produces some original programming, and - in honor of Black History Month - they recently produced three one-hour specials called "That's What I'm Talking About." This is television at its best...a free-flowing unfiltered conversation about the Black experience in America, with a wide range of participants ranging from Spike Lee to DL Hughley to Diahann Carroll.

TV Land proves that it's possible to entertain and make a difference.

We are proud to have worked with TV Land in developing its Family Table initiative which encourages more families to share meals together.

Life After 30

I spoke with a client this afternoon who is in New York for a conference on what happens after the 30-second spot.

One thing that's happening - if not after the 30-second spot, certainly in combination with it - is the great surge in product placements.

Watch "American Idol" on any given night (and it seems to be on virtually every night!) and you are likely to see an average of more than 83 product placements per episode.

But "American Idol" isn't the biggest product placement venue. "The Contender" (appropriately named) holds that title. That reality show logged more than 7,502 individual product placements during its 2005 season. That's an average of 500.9 individual occurences of product placements per episode.

Product placements on television increased 32% last year. Ad-skipping technologies, accelerating audience fragmentation, the increase in the number of cable channels, commercial clutter, and the decreasing length of commercials are all reasons contributing to this boom.

March 14, 2006

2006-03-14T23:31:00.000-05:00

On Authenticity

All research indicates that what matters most in messaging today is authenticity.

We see it work for Dove (with its real-sized women). We see it work with Nike. And we're about to see it work for the Post and Courier.

Our creative team has produced some wonderfully refreshing spots for the Post and Courier newspaper. They feature real people telling their own true reasons for reading the paper. And, before you get glazed over thinking "Oh sure...another set of testimonial ads. Snore!!" you just need to see these spots. They've got such life and freshness and - as Charleston's own Stephen Colbert would say - "truthiness."

My guess is they'll sell papers too!

And speaking of papers, the New York Times reported today that they'll stop listing stock prices some time in the next couple of months. They'll provide all of that information on the web. Natural move. A wise recognition of the realities of today's life. When will other papers follow?

Now, here's a longer thought about authenticity and truthiness.

Last night Chris Matthews reported on some Republican hoedown over the weekend that included most of the potential Presidential candidates for 2008. He said that the focus was less on the candidates than it was on the issues. And the number one issue was marriage...the importance of every child having a mother and father. I guess this is what people refer to as "the sanctity of marriage," although I'm not at all sure what that means...and I doubt that it means the same thing to different people.

Anyway, it seems that the Republicans are fixated that the only way to provide a healthy life for a child is to have a child reared by a mother and a father...and that's issue number one for them.

Well, as I mentioned recently, my friend Fred Golding produced a brilliant documentary called "Love and Marriage," in which he followed four couples over a one-year period. There was a young midwestern couple with four kids, a couple getting a divorce (they had two daughters), a couple in which the wife is a high-powered magazine editor in New York and the writer husband is a house husband looking after their one daughter, and a gay couple (two men) who live in a suburban development with two adopted African-American children.

The documentary is non-judgmental. You get to know the couples pretty well, though, and - as far as my wife and I were concerned - the couple (and family) that treated one another with the most love, respect, wisdom and humor was the gay couple with two African-American adopted children.

If the "love and marriage" were a game, this couple would be the winner.

That's Exhibit One.

Exhibit Two is a friend of mine who - at age 60 - has just had a baby daughter. He worked on this for two years. He is divorced. He worked with California doctors to be the father of a child with a genetic mother and a gestation mother. He is ideally suited to be a father. He is smart, caring, stable, has high ethical values, and can provide well for a child in every possible way.

But one California doctor turned him down, saying he was too old. And California is the only state in which it is legal to do what he has done. So it isn't easy, even with planning, resources, desire, and suitability.

Those two lovely African-American children don't have "a mother and a father." And this beautiful little baby girl that just came to Charleston from California doesn't have "a mother and a father" either.

And yet I would argue that their respective families are as authentic or more authentic than any fantasy Ozzie/Harriet/Ricky/David combination anywhere in this country.

Authenticity isn't something that is on a piece of paper. It's something deep in the soul. The young woman enthusiastically saying "Buy the paper! Get the paper!" isn't reading a script with someone else's words. She's expressing her own feelings in her own words.

We should never be afraid of the freedom to act out one's good feelings. That's what that woman is doing. That's what that gay couple is doing. And my friend, the new father, is doing it too.

They are living out their true feelings.

In the last months of her fatal cancer, my mother discarded most of her personal papers. But she kept one small piece of paper on which she had written a quote from Pablo Casals. It's framed on my desk and it is several lines long. But the last line reads, "Do we dare to be ourselves? That is the most important question."

March 13, 2006

2006-03-13T21:28:00.000-05:00

RX for Business

Arguably, our biggest domestic issue is healthcare. We spend more on it than we spend on food. Healthcare insurance costs - which uniquely in this country are principally paid by employers - are skyrocketing and endangering the future of American businesses large and small. And, if you really look at how the healthcare insurance industry works, you can see that the crisis is only going to get worse.

It's a complex issue. We know more about it than we did a decade ago. The rational way to solve it is clearer. But the political barriers to solving it are more daunting than ever before.

Is there a way for those of us in marketing and communications to use our skills to convey the problem and possible solutions and try to contribute to more responsible thought and action on the part of our elected officials?

The answer to the challenge of these painfully rising costs seems to be a universal system of public insurance, such as one finds in several European countries. All the evidence points to this kind of system providing better coverage, coverage to all, and more economically efficient coverage.

For example a study conducted by the Urban Institute found that "per capita spending for an adult Medicaid beneficiary in poor health would rise from $9,615 to $14,785 if the person were insured privately and received services consistent with private utilization levels and private provider payment rates."

One distinct advantage of public health insurance is lower administrative costs. That's because private insurers spend so much trying to identify and screen out high-cost customers. In 2003, for instance, Medicare spent less than 2% of its resources on administration, while private insurance companies spent more than 13%.

The fragmentation and private component of our system is preventing us from controlling these runaway costs. A nationwide public health insurance program would reduce costs, lift this enormous burden off of businesses, and provide coverage to the tens of millions of people who are uncovered today.

Everyone 65 or over is covered by Medicare. But, of those below 65, only 5.3% buy health insurance for themselves. Another 63.1% receive health insurance through their employers. That leaves 31.6% with no health insurance coverage at all.

As costs skyrocket, the number of companies providing health insurance is diminishing. And, among those continuing to provide coverage, many are regularly reducing benefits. More and more Americans are becoming uninsured or underinsured.

We have a crisis. Our citizens are in danger. And our businesses are on the ropes. Elected officials may recognize it, but they won't solve it...at least without some powerful communications from their constituents. Can't we help with those communications?

When You've Run Out of Ideas

Everyone is blasting Mastercard for its lame commercial in which it asks people to come up with a commercial for the seemingly endless "priceless" campaign.

While the idea may have come out of some group grope about how to play into our culture's obsesssion with interactivity ("Hey, here's an idea. Why don't we let the people out there create their own spot for us?!"), it seems to me like interactivity gone awry.

One of the beers did this with an outdoor campaign. They encouraged consumers to submit quotes about why they liked the beer, or even to come up with ad slogans. It was Amateur Night, to be sure. The results were so lame that they were embarrassing.

While consumers most certainly like to have their say, and they like to have things "their way," they don't want to do our work for us. We need to pull our own weight and give them plenty of reasons to be engaged. "Write me a spot," doesn't do it.

Racing for the Women

NASCAR merchandisers are focusing on women (with - for example - a NASCAR crock pot and a Daytona 500 fragrance from Elizabeth Arden), because women represent 40% of the NASCAR fan base.

The purchasing power of women never ceases to be amazing. For instance, women make 77% of the wine buying decisions and 80% of the home improvement buying decisions.

March 8, 2006

2006-03-08T21:16:00.000-05:00

But, Does that Benefit Matter to Your Customer?

There's a great article in the latest Harvard Business Review on the subject of Customer Value Propositions.

The article addresses the importance of being disciplined about understanding your customers, so you can make smarter choices about where to allocate scarce resources.

We all fall into the trap of telling our customers about all of our benefits, when - in fact - only a handful of benefits may really matter to them.

There's an interesting chart in the article describing three kinds of value propositions:

One kind consists of all the benefits that customers receive; one communicates the benefits that represent points of difference with the competition; and the third is called "resonating focus," because it concentrates on the one or two points of difference that will deliver the greatest value to the customer. This last value proposition is most powerful, but it obviously requires customer value research.

It's so easy to get caught up in benefits. "What about this?" "Did we tell them about that?" "Hey, we have this that noone else has?" "And don't forget this!"

But all that matters is what matters to customers. Find out. Keep finding out. And then focus on those specific benefits. That's where the action is. And the profit.

Retreat Reflections

We had a Culture Retreat yesterday. We reviewed the values of our firm and discussed them in context with each individual's values. It was a wonderful way to reaffirm what we stand for, and to get to know one another better.

Our guide through the process, Sheila Campbell, provided several stimulating exercises, one of which was that each of us drew a "crest" in which we illustrated what we value. She often does the same exercise having people construct collages.

Our business speeds along. We are forever fighting deadlines and rushing to accomplish something better than anything we've done before. We work very closely together and know what each of us brings to the table and relish the opportunities to share our skills and collaboratively come up with smarter, more creative solutions.

But, who are the people who hold and share these skills? Yesterday's exercises - and the entire day - gave us insights about each person. And I think we all came away even more grateful that we get to work with one another every single day.

March 6, 2006

2006-03-06T21:37:00.000-05:00

Nonsense Car Talk

A car dealer tells me that it's like clockwork: for every 100 people who come onto the lot, 20 will buy a car. It doesn't matter how the people are treated, the percentages never significantly vary.

I don't believe that. And there are several car dealerships written up throughout this country that have demonstrated not only the value of treating a person right when they come on the lot, but also treating them right once they've bought...because then they'll buy again...and again.

It drives me nuts when someone essentially thinks people are idiots...that they will act the same, regardless of how their treated.

I recently read some of the rules of marketing of a successful retailer who competed (and beat) some very stiff (and much larger) competition. Here are some of them:

1. Always tell the truth.
2. Always surprise the customer by giving them more than they expected.
3. Find a lot of little ways to make doing business with you a little better.
4. Never in any way embarrass a customer or make him feel ignorant.
5. When you don't know, say so. Never make things up.
6. Never pressure anyone into anything.

Looking at this list, I'm reminded of the time my partner and I visited several Oldsmobile dealerships in preparation for pitching a regional dealers' account. One dealer sold Oldsmobiles and Chevrolets. "What's the difference between an Olds and a Chevy," I asked. "Oh," he exclaimed, "the difference is that Oldsmobiles are better because they are hand made."

Mmmm.

Always tell the truth? Never make things up?

Get real!

One of the things that's great about the world of marketing today is that people have so many choices that they don't need to buy your product or service. There's always another one ready to take their business. And that puts a premium on smart marketing...the ability to provide straight talk, complete information, and genuine service customized to each individual's needs.

Anything else is nonsense.

March 5, 2006

2006-03-05T11:41:00.000-05:00

Good as Gold[ing]

Tonight is the Academy Awards, and I'm thinking about a wonderful film made by Fred Golding for MSNBC. It's called Love and Marriage, and it follows four couples over a year's time...exploring the dynamics of love and marriage...what makes them work; what makes them fall apart.

There are many extraordinary aspects of the film (which was shown as three one-hour segments). You really got to have a sense of these couples. The filming and editing were so brilliant that even by spending a relatively short time with each of them, you got to know them and you got to understand how they got where they are and - probably - where they were going.

But, for me, there were two aspects that really stood out.

The first was that Fred (who happens to be a good friend of mine) made the film very personal. Coming off a divorce himself, he put himself right into the movie. He narrates very personally throughout...we see him in therapy sessions, we see him interact with the four couples...and his presence adds a raw quality that makes the movie so much more real and immediate. Rather than get in the way of the couples' stories with his own, he amplifies them. As he is candid, they are candid.

It made me recognize again how important and powerful authenticity is in effective communications.

The second aspect that really stood out for me was that of the four couples - (one was a happily married midwest couple with four young children...one was a divorcing couple...one was a couple in which the woman is a high-powered executive and her writer husband is a stay-at-home dad...and one was two gay men with two African-American children) - the couple that, in my mind, most clearly had the healthiest relationship was the two gay men.

I do not think this was intentional. Nor do I believe that everyone would come to the same conclusion. But it does say something about the severe limitations of the prejudices our society holds on to...and the adviseability of letting them go.

February 27, 2006

2006-02-27T19:25:00.000-05:00

Do you ever get the feeling that luxury magazines wouldn't exist if it weren't for ads for watches? And do you ever feel that if there were no Geico or Ditech ads, there would be very little advertising on television? How do we stop the madness?

Novel Non-Traditional Media

I'd love to start a collection of novel non-traditional media. Please, please, please pass along ideas you've seen or imagined.

My most recent sighting was ads on taxi hubcaps in Houston. The ads covered the entire hubcap and didn't spin...so they were eye-catching and readable. The happened to be about a basketball tournament, so they were the shape of a basketball and joggled back and forth just enough to catch your eye but not too much, so you could easily read them.

Very cool.

Great Moments in Television

Many are now preserved and disseminated on the web where they are viewed by many more people than originally watched them on TV.

The classic example is Jon Stewart giving Tucker Carlson a piece of his mind on Crossfire. A few hundred thousand viewers saw it as it played. But 3.5 million caught it on the web.

A small audience watched Isaac Mizrahi's laying on of hands with Scarlett Johannson on one of those Red Carpets. But 358,000 saw it later on the web.

Hardly anyone needs to be told to spread the word on these and other tasty tidbits that find themselves to the web.

Consider this:

If 25 people tell 25 people and the process is repeated five times. the number equals approximately the population of the United States.

One more iteration, and the number equals appoximately the population of the world.

Looking for Men in All the Right Places

Heineken is launching a new "Premium Light" beer and wants to reach men ages 25-49. Their campaign will have a major web advertising component, as well as its own site. But, even though the web plays the lead role in the $50 million launch, Heineken will complement that effort with TV, radio, print, outdoor, promotions, and a Hispanic-focused initiative.

Traditional media are always going to play a key role in any comprehensive campaign. In fact, Michelle Evans shared some strong stats with us today. Ad spending in '06 is estimated to be divided up by television (at 43.7%), magazines (20.5%), newspapers (19.9%), radio (7.5%), Internet (6.0%), and outdoor (2.4%).

And spending increases for the year are estimated at Hispanic Network TV (up 10.4%), Internet (up 9.1%), Cable TV (up 8.4%), Outdoor (up 7.2%), Network TV (up 4.5%) Newspapers (up 4.3%), and Radio (up 3.6%).

What you see is a strong across-the-board increase, and that's reflective of the multi-media approach needed to get your message across.

February 23, 2006

2006-02-23T15:21:00.000-05:00

The Wal-Mart Nation

I watched an interview with Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott the other day. He deflected concern about disgruntled employees, noting that with 1.5 million employees Wal-Mart would have lots of dissention even if only a small percentage were unhappy.

Indeed, if one percent of Wal-Mart employees were upset, that would be a small percentage but a large absolute number: 150,000 people!

Scott also defended the company's position on providing healthcare insurance to its employees...or NOT providing it, as the case is.

Last night ABC News featured a story about the per capita spending on healthcare in the United States. As I recall, it was somewhere around $6,500, compared with about $2,500 in each comparable Western European nation. The figure was around $700 for Costa Rico! One out of every five dollars spent by a company is for healthcare coverage. The situation has spun way out of control.

Malcolm Gladwell recently wrote about the importance of companies becoming involved in the improvement of public issues such as healthcare. After all, he argues, healthcare insurance is what is burying the Great American Corporate Giants like GM and Ford. It's doing a pretty good job clobbering us little guys too!

It seems to me that we need to use our communications skills to encourage more businesses to confront our country's crises like healthcare and public education. Both systems are seriously out of whack. Thomas Friedman hits the education nail on the head in "The World is Flat."

We all need to figure out how to be part of the solution. How can we use the skills we have to solve these problems?

As for Wal-Mart, even without providing healthcare insurance, the company is having some tough times. Year-over-year store sales increases have lagged way behind Target. So the company plans to remodel nearly half of the U.S. stores, strengthen its marketing, and expand its line of urban clothing.

Ads are dropping "always low prices" in favor of "look beyond the basics," in an effort to get customers with money to spend it on something beyond paper towels and dishwasher soap.

Can Wal-Mart win its customers? I don't see how, unless they win their employees.

And to win their employees, it seems to me that they not only need to provide healthcare insurance but they also have to play a much more pro-active role in getting this country to solve its healthcare crisis.

February 21, 2006

2006-02-21T20:59:00.000-05:00

Dorothy Hamill has become Kelly Clarkson

That's how one commentator characterized the decline in Winter Olympics television ratings. They're the worst ever. And NBC's prime time coverage lost to Fox's American Idol big time. More than 10 million households prefered the battle of amateur performers to that of amateur athletes.

NBC's spokesman said that they used to consider the television network coverage as being for the family, cable coverage for the sports fan, and the website for the fanatic.

Obviously, that's all changed. Now the website is mainstream. And web traffic for Olympics coverage has topped 3 million unique visitors a day. In fact, while American Idol beat the Olympics on television, Olympic websites are clobbering the Idol's website by more than 4:1.

The time difference makes it difficult to follow the Olympics in a linear fashion. So we're subjected to the editing of others. And, in today's consumer-centric world, that just doesn't fly. So we turn instead to the seemingly unedited, unscripted, anything-can-happen Americal Idol.

Personally, I think NBC should have turned our lives upside down and provided incredible live coverage, preempting daytime programming and forcing us to watch stuff as it really happens. I think that would make it more of an event than the butchered we're-in-charge,-not-you coverage we're seeing every evening.

If the network won't mix it up, the viewers will. And they have.

Fashionable Tips

I loved reading Liz Claiborne CEO Paul Charron's five tips for reforming the fashion industry in the Wall Street Journal. They repeat themes that we think are so very important: transparency and collaboration.

Tip 1. Increase collaboration between retailers and vendors, making practices like markdowns more transparent.

Tip 2. Demystify fashion to take the risk out of marketing a trendy product by analyzing fashion merchandise with the same rigor as a consumer products company would analyze dish detergent.

Tip 3. Emphasize more interaction between divisions; even designers should understand business goals.

Tip 4. Commit to training and grooming managers, and moving them around so they always have a fresh perspective.

Tip 5. Evaluate your company against world-class businesses outside of the fashion industry.

All good advice, regardless of one's industry.

Be open with information, collaborative with partners, supportive of associates, and objective about your own business.

Let the sun shine in.

February 20, 2006

2006-02-20T19:03:00.000-05:00

Capturing/Informing the Visitor

The folks at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis have a smart idea. They have phone numbers next to certain works of art. Call the number, and you get an audio description of what you're looking at.

At an exhibit of contemporary prefabricated houses, they had a leaflet with a headline, "Use your cell phone to learn more about prefab." There followed a cell phone number and a series of four-digit codes that would lead you to any one of 10 options . The leaflet also told you how to download to your iPod everything from "Art on Call" via the Walker's website or through iTunes.

Such a great idea.

Think of the versatility and flexibility. The ease of changing the message, the ease of directing people to other extensions. The opportunity to use this for walking tours, driving tours, etc. For example, we have long-promoted the use of cell phone marketing messages as a way to get pass-through visitors to stop and sample your destination.

For more info on the Walker's Art on Call initiative, go to newmedia.walkerart.org/aoc.

The Doorway to the World

I noticed that Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is coming to South Carolina to woo the Republicans here. I read recently that he proposed a bill to buy his state's children 500,000 very inexpensive computers being created at MIT.

Apparently, MIT's Media Lab has developed the prototype of a $100 computer. And that could provide a doorway to the world to millions and millions of people. These computers would include wireless peer-to-peer connections that create a local network. And, presuming there's an Internet signal somewhere in the network area, everyone can get online and use a built-in Web browser.

Wow! Now we're talking! Now everyone's talking!

Nothing is as it Seems to Be

That's always the case, isn't it?

Take the latest trend in product placement. Instead of worrying about what to put where as a show is being shot, product placement is increasingly added digitally after the fact. That means, of course, that you could conceivably alter the product placement by market and by re-run, etc.

More possibilities!

February 7, 2006

2006-02-07T20:53:00.000-05:00

Lifestyle Touchpoint Marketing

We talk a lot about Lifestyle Touchpoint Marketing...identifying how your target audience lives their lives and intercepting them in as many critical places as possible. So-called traditional media - like broadcast, print, and interactive - certainly represent touchpoints. But they need to be complemented by other touchpoint marketing as well.

Reading about the new campaign to strengthen Jane magazine's 20-something audience, I found it interesting to see that they intended to include coffee sleeves on college campuses, radio commercials in drug stores, and spots on plasma TV's in malls and airports.

Clever. Also clever is the magazine's refinement of its editorial product, focused now much more directly on its target audience.

The Cost of a Bad Customer Experience

I read somewhere that when the average customer has a bad experience, they share their woes with some unbelievably high number of people...and the story of their bad experience has as much as a 20-year life.

We do know that women make 80% of the purchasing decisions in this country and that they are several times more likely than men to tell their friends about their shopping experience.

So the cost of providing a bad experience is very high indeed.

A recent survey of online shoppers showed that not only did an overwhelming 82% of respondents say they would be less likely to return to a site where they had a frustrating shopping experience, but 55% said a negative online shopping experience would make them less likely to buy at that retailer's physical store.

Other interesting findings:

76% of respondents said they were more likely to buy products on a site that offers rich features, such as product zoom, 360-degree product views, and online videos of the product in context.

54% of respondents who choose to shop in a physical store vs. online do so because shopping in a store allows them to understand a product better (and women almost always want to understand a product better)

This last point is intriguing because the online environment enables you to show much more about a product than is necessarily available in a store. But you don't have the sales person to chat up, and that does make a difference.

And the Winner Is...

When it comes to Super Bowl spots, there is no clear winner. Different sources declare different ads as "best." What this says to me is that we no longer have a collective conscience. Our lifestyle and viewing interests have become so diverse that we each march to different drummers. When we are brought together under one roof (as more than 140 million of us were on Super Bowl Sunday), we may watch the same program or spots, but our response is no longer going to be collectively shared. We are a very divided nation. Not just divided into reds and blues (although that wide chasm exacerbates our divisiveness)...but we are now divided into a million little pieces. The spots haven't lost their ability to speak to us as one. We have lost our ability to listen as one.

And boy are there consequences of that!

February 6, 2006

2006-02-06T21:16:00.000-05:00

Slicing and Dicing to Maximize Profitability

There's been a lot of interesting writing about segmentation recently. ProfitBrand is a book that explores the subject in depth, and there's a good article called "Rediscovering Market Segmentation" in the latest Harvard Business Review.

The data-driven world in which we live enables us to know much more about our customers. The challenge is to slice and dice your customer base so that you understand the characteristics of those customers who are most profitable to you...and devise ways of attracting more of them.

The HBR article talks about a bank that analyzed its "wealth management" customers, only to discover that the least profitable ones were being managed by the bank's most senior relationship executives. Not a wise use of resources.

Segmentation analyses also enable you to test product or service enhancements with focus groups of your most profitable customers. Ask them what they'd like that they don't presently get from you (or test your own innovation ideas against them) and even ask them what they'd be willing to pay for these enhancements.

How often we spend our time and resources where they may be least effective. Smart segmentation minimizes the likelihood of falling into that trap.

But...Beware of Generalizations

Just as I'm fascinated by segmentation, I'm equally intrigued by the pitfalls of generalization. That is, saying "Our best [or worst] customers are like this. Therefore, all individuals who share those characteristics should be good customers for us."

Malcolm Gladwell's latest article in The New Yorker gives you great pause for generalizations, especially in terms of profiling. As usual, he uses great examples to show how we ascribe certain behavior to certain types of individuals (or animals) and misguidedly extrapolate that across all people who share similar characteristics.

His classic example is the pit bull, which - it turns out - is not only several breeds of dog (not just one) but is also not generally a destructive dog. And yet, some communities have literally banned pit bulls. We have endowed pit bulls with an unearned and unjustified reputation. We have generalized.

And, what kind of dog bit the French woman so badly that she had to have the world's first face transplant?

A black lab.

Go figure.

The First 'Century'

This is my 100th blog. I enjoy writing a few words about things I read and think about. It's called "Notes on Marketing &Communications," and that's all it is. Just some notes. I love the work we do, the challenges we face, and the great people we work with. I especially like the constant changes and evolutions that make this work so stimulating.

Comments are welcome and encouraged.

February 1, 2006

2006-02-01T22:36:00.000-05:00

Getting Ready for Super Sunday

A year after Last Year's Super Sunday, they're still talking about the spots. I just read that GoDaddy.com - which was ridiculed for stepping up to buy TWO spots in last year's Super Bowl - ended up having the last laugh. By April, the company had passed Network Solutions to become the web's leading domain-name registrar.

GoDaddy banked on the fact that their exposure ran way beyond the 30-seconds of airtime. After all, Super Bowl spots are replayed, talked about, written about and highlighted for weeks after the game in all kinds of media.

Equally important is the fact that there is probably no better way to optimize reach than through Super Bowl advertising. How else can you get the attention of such a sizeable audience in one shot? No way.

This year, experts estimate that half the Super Bowl audience will be women. So we'll be seeing ads for products that appeal principally to women (such as Dove soap). And we'll be seeing even better rings at the register after the Super Bowl, since women control 80% of the purchases in this country.

It's just so darn difficult to reach a lot of people all at once. The Super Bowl is solution number one.

RFID = BIG (as in "Brother"?)

RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) has been getting a lot of play...especially in our security-conscious society.

A new application of the technology enables companies with in-store displays to use radio frequencies to monitor those displays. Are the displays on the floor? Are they in the right aisle? What sales are being generated?

For companies that want to assure that their displays are properly placed and measure that placement against sales, this is big news.

For privacy advocates, concerned that the data will be used in frequent shopper profiles, this is Big Brother.

Fact is...it's now possible to attach small sensors to shopping carts so we can trace each shopper's path and pace through the store...which aisles did they go down, which products did they stop and look at, and for how long? And, ultimately, what did they buy?

The information is virtually endless, as is the opportunity to put it to good use.

Is there a point at which customers will balk and say, "Hey, you know too much about me. Get out of my life!"

I'm not sure...after all, the more we know about our customers, the better we can serve them. Right?

And why weren't people more upset with the story that anyone's cell phone records can be purchased for less than $200?

January 31, 2006

2006-01-31T21:45:00.000-05:00

"Who are you wearing?"

Have you had it up to here with Red Carpets? I know that I have.

It seems to me that they trivialize movies and the incredible impact that movies can have.

The "E!" Entertainment factor of movies is important, to be sure. But what thrills me most is the power of movies to inform, energize, and motivate.

Television multiplied the reach and power of movies by many factors. Decades ago, "Roots" raised the awareness of and dialogue around racism in this country. The series "Holocaust" was seen by one out of every two households in America (and it was telecast in Germany and throughout Europe) with profound effect.

This past year, "Syriana," "Good Night, and Good Luck," and even "Crash" brought to us an awareness of issues that we otherwise simply might never have confronted. They've got "content." And, to be sure, content is king.

Tonight, the major networks - and some other channels - pre-empted their regularly scheduled programs for the State of the Union Address. Why, then, don't they pre-empt programs on a regular basis for other programming that addresses substantial issues? How can we squander the attention of so many American households and not give them the opportunity to be challenged, inspired, informed, and provoked by consequential issues?

"Not good box office?"

I'll tell you what's "not good box office."

It's not good box office when - out of ignorance - we run out of fossil fuels....when the avian bird flu spreads...when Katrina victims are not helped...when we ignore the AIDS epidemic in Africa...when we don't fix our healthcare system...when our educational system continues to fall behind that of other developed nations...and so it goes.

I'm not saying we're the only ones with challenges. I'm saying that communications - movies, television, radio, music, etc. - can help us with our challenges. And the media need to dedicate the time and resources to doing so.

The relevant question isn't "Who are you wearing?" It's "What are you doing to make this a better place?"

It seems to me that those of us with some skills in communications need to be addressing the right question.

Today isn't George Bush's day. It's George Clooney's day.

George Clooney was nominated as best supporting actor in "Syriana," and as director and co-writer of "Good Night, and Good Luck." He can certainly look back on the year and say he made a difference. It's virtually impossible to view those two movies and not be deeply affected.

Interestingly, "Good Night, and Good Luck" has heroes and villains, whereas there are no heroes in "Syriana." Everyone is corrupt in a way. The lines are so much blurrier. Such a clear reflection of how times have changed. Black and white, no longer operable. Everything, more layered, more complex, more multi-faceted. So much more difficult to find one's compass. So much more important to do so.

We are blessed to have the skills that we possess. How, then, shall we use them?

January 28, 2006

2006-01-28T15:25:00.000-05:00

clk, Tell me about the Top Shop. I'm intrigued!

Psst, Pass it on!

Inevitably, surveys shows that people make the buying decisions they make because of "word-of-mouth."

Many marketers ignore that information and continue to sell their products and services the old-fashioned way. They figure that if they can convince customers to buy, those customers will automatically sell other customers.

There's some truth to that. But it's kind of like simply putting products on the shelves. They may look good and will sell to those who see them. However, they'll sell a whole lot better with some marketing muscle behind them.

'Word-of-mouth' (or 'buzz marketing', etc.) has been getting increasing attention. The Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association even had its own conference last week in Orlando. More than 440 participants packed into sessions on subjects like "Turning Customers into Evangelists" and "How to Create Brand Converts."

Turning customers into fans increasingly involves either more regular communications with them (using a variety of media such as podcasts) or encouraging more interactive communication with them.

The point is that it's a structured, strategic, pro-active effort...rather than the passive hope-they-like-us-and-will-tell-their-friends attitude of the past.

One interesting aspect of buzz marketing, in my opinion, has been the determination that it's best to be straight with consumers. That is, the good buzz marketers who pay individuals to spread the word about products or services tell their reps to identify themselves as being paid to endorse and proselytize. Full disclosure, transparency...call it what you will. Seems like a good idea and reportedly doesn't impede the reps' results.

I don't suppose James Fry will be applying for one of those jobs.

January 25, 2006

2006-01-25T21:59:00.000-05:00

Listen Up

Very cool piece on public radio this afternoon. Unfortunately, I heard only a snippet. It was an interview with a man talking about how to communicate with toddlers.

A toddler climbs up a jungle gym and gleefully announces, "Mommy, look at me!" You respond with equal giddyness, almost mirroring his enthusiasm.

Natural and appropriate response, says the expert.

A toddler is having trouble opening a box and is just as excited as he was when he climbed up the jungle gym - (but in a negative way). His high-energy voice reflects his agitation and frustration. You could even say he's having a temper tantrum.

Conventional wisdom has been that mommy says in calm, measured tones. "That's OK. Don't be upset. Let me help you. It's going to be all right." Etc.

Wrong response, says the expert.

The kid is agitated. Show you feel his agitation. Respond with just as much energy as he is expressing. And just as much concern. "Oh my gosh...that is SO frustrating! Don't you hate it when that happens?! I can see you're really upset." [You get the idea.] And THEN come down to the measured tone level and help him solve the problem.

That's the expert's advice.

And it makes sense. Advice like that always reminds me of playing catch. When the ball comes towards you, you catch it by moving your glove in the line of the ball. You go with the ball. Then, when the ball is snugly in your mitt, you take it out and throw it.

Language communications are just the same. To be effective, you've got to "go with the ball" that's thrown at you. If the person is agitated, show that you understand their agitation. Then help them resolve it. If (as in marketing) the person has a need, show that you have clearly understood the need by getting into the emotion of it as well as the fact of it....and then help provide them with a solution.

Often during the day I take note of the extent to which I have listened successfully to others and they, to me. The number of disconnects on both sides can really be a bummer. But identifying them helps me recognize and appreciate more the opportunities for connection and provides lessons that are directly relevant to effective marketing communications.

January 23, 2006

2006-01-23T22:38:00.000-05:00

Luxury Marketers Now Listen to Customers

Marketers of luxury goods used to listen only to their muses. Now many of them are listening to their customers, and the results are very strong indeed.

Coach, for example, annually spends more than $3 million researching its customers and testing new products. 80% of its products come to the market pre-tested.

Ermenegildo Zegna, the high-end men's clothing design company, interviews about 1,000 customers every month.

And classic brands like Burberry and Louis Vuitton have successfully updated and expanded their product lines after extensive customer research.

What has been so basic to most other industries is now being adopted by key players in the luxury field.

Meanwhile, these product lines are presented in showplaces that are increasingly fantastic in their design (and cost). The shopping experience is heightened for sure.

But along comes the Spanish clothier Zara which brings upscale apparel to the mass market, and wow what a success they have become. Zara customers visit the store an average of 17 times a year, vs. an industry average of 3-4 visits per year. That's because Zara features new designs twice a week! In fact, nothing stays in a Zara store for more than a month.

So we're seeing two important trends in the luxury market: the increasing commitment to consumer research and the mass marketing of luxury through very clever (and fast-paced) merchandising.

Bottom line is there's much more dependence on smart marketing, not just creative design.

And Speaking of the Rich...

The top 20% earners in our country have increased their share of consumer spending. They now do nearly 40% of the nation's consumer spending, according to a new report. They accounted for 57% of consumer spending on "other lodging" (including hotels and vacation homes), 51% of fees and admissions, 40% of apparel...and on it goes.

Meanwhile, the bottom 20% are spending a lower share of total consumer spending than they were 20 years ago. So much for trickle down economics....a complete sham....or "voodoo economics" as Bush I so accurately put it.

January 20, 2006

2006-01-20T20:45:00.000-05:00

The Dream Diluted

We've talked a lot about the impact and effectiveness of appealing to all of the senses in marketing and communications. Failure to do so inevitably dilutes the power of the message.

I thought of this again earlier this week when we were once again denied the sound and the sight and the extraordinary power of the speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We are denied them because his divisive family has held them up in some ridiculous copywrite wrangling that ranks right up there with their milking all the money out of the King Center and demanding $20 million for the sale of his papers (no takers yet).

What they've effectively done is dilute the power of this great leader, arguably the greatest American leader of the 20th century.

Many wonderful films were made with exerpts of Dr. King's speeches. They drove home his message with such force and finality. And now young people are denied any inkling of that message (as relevant today as it was when Dr. King was alive)...and, for those of us who do remember him, the memories become dimmer.

I've always admired the people who fight to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive. There was a time when I foolishly thought "enough already." But now - seeing what has happened with the memories of Dr. King - I recognize and appreciate more than ever how important it is to remind ourselves in the most vivid sensory way possible of these extraordinary people and times in our history. The Holocaust Museum in Washington certainly appeals to all of the senses. And that helps it be so powerfully effective.

Taylor Branch has just released the third book of his trilogy on the King years. I commend all three to anyone who wants to get close to the experience of that time and that remarkable man. They are "Parting the Waters," "Pillar of Fire," and - most recently - "At Canaan's Edge."

An Atmosphere of Trust

I was thinking today of how important an atmosphere of trust is in the customer experience.

I went to get an MRI. Anticipating that I would be uncomfortable remaining in the same position for a very long time, I asked for a sedative. They told me I would need to have someone drive me home. "No problem," I said, "I'll call someone to get me when you're through."

"How do we know you won't just walk out?" they said. "You need to have someone waiting for you right here right now.

"No way," I said. "Why should I tie up someone's time? They are five minutes away. I'll call them when we're done."

"No," they said, "We need to see the person now."

I told them, "That would be tantamount to you saying you need to see the cash I'm going to pay the bill with right now. You're saying, in effect, that you don't trust me. And I don't want to be here receiving medical services (or any other kind of services) from people who don't trust me."

(I was getting upset and could really use that sedative!!)

Supervisors were called and I was finally allowed to have it my way. That is, to be trusted as a customer.

I had been so relaxed when I came in. Their distrust had upset me. And it made me realize how very important it is to provide a trusting environment....or at least the appearance of a trusting environment.

By "appearance" I mean things like greeters in stores. Are the greeters or security people simply there to keep you honest. Perhaps they're simply there for security, but if we think they're there to be friendly (which we naturally want to believe), then they contribute to an environment of trust.

January 17, 2006

2006-01-17T22:55:00.000-05:00

Keeping Customer...REAL Customers

Barry Kalinsky tells me that the average mass retailer gets 30-35% returns. That's astounding. That means that one-third of the merchandise that's bought is returned. What a lot of work!

Returning merchandise is a pain in the neck. But, for many consumers, the act of shopping must be so satisfying that it is more important to them than their need or want for any product itself. So, returns are simply part of their shopping process. Kind of a bulimic mind set, in my opinion.

At Barry's store - Bob Ellis - the returns are only about 5%. I think that's because Bob Ellis sales personnel treat each customer individually and really get to understand what they want and provide it in the most graceful way. It's a treat to watch. And it is so different from the cookie cutter customer treatment one sees at most mass retailers. The Bob Ellis staff focuses on relationships, not transactions. But, believe me, the cash register never stops ringing!

We do a lot of secret shopping and have done so for years. Heck, I almost ended up having to buy a time share condominium once because of the over enthusiasm of my associate during a secret shopping adventure. (But that's a story for another time.)

Typically, secret shopping helps you understand how well customers are handled by your client and their competitors. Are they covering all the key bases...and how well? We typically go that extra step of identifying the extent to which the staff listens to us, picks up on what is most meaningful to us, and treats us individually. And that can make the difference between returns of 35% and 5%.

Breaking the Geek Barrier

There are more and more cool gadgets out there, but the real prize is always going to go to the producer who can make us regular folks feel in control of the gadgets we use. And I think we're going to see much more of that.

Until recently, too much has been geek friendly but regular person intimidating.

Consumers now - more than ever - want to be in control. We want to be treated as individuals (as Bob Ellis so wisely appreciates) and we don't want to be intimidated...by people or by gadgets.

My guess is that we'll see a lot more well designed, smooth functioning, and VERY easy to operate gadgets - even those that converge several media (the big new thing) - and then the boom will truly be a boom.

iPod is the icon. It is the standard. Perhaps it's only the beginning.

January 16, 2006

2006-01-16T16:00:00.000-05:00

Products that Tell a Story

As consumers, we want to associate a story with the products we buy...and we want to believe that story. That's how we establish a relationship with the product.

Good bookstores sometimes display hand-written recommendations from staff members. And, when they do, don't you always gravitate to the books that accompany those recommendations?

There was a piece on public radio this weekend about a woman who has a vintage clothing store. She attaches a tag - with a story - onto every garment. She thinks clothes have a distinct energy and distinct personality. That's how she is building powerful customer relationships and fast-growing sales.

Someone gave me some Fiji water for Christmas. I hadn't thought much about Fiji water before. But the bottle is different; the name, exotic; the label, enticing; and it tells a story...of pure water from "an aquifer deep beneath volcanic highlands and pristine tropical forests."

All of this makes for a strong connection with customers....so strong that Fiji sales have soared 61%, while Evian's have declined by 23%.

It's all in the story.

Why Newspapers Matter

There are lots of reasons...even in this Internet world in which we live.

First of all, content matters. And newspapers have the content...hands down.

Second of all, newspapers can address issues in greater depth. The Times' series on diabetes has been brilliant and comprehensive at a level not possible in any other medium.

Third, a certain kind of convenience well articulated by Richard Parsons, CEO of AOL Time Warner. Parsons defines what he calls "The Three B's" of why print will remain: beach, bathroom, and bedroom - places where technology and gadgets have yet to gain a foothold.

January 10, 2006

2006-01-10T22:55:00.000-05:00

Integrity...Authenticity...We See a Pattern Here

Apparently, the number one word looked up in Merriam-Webster's online dictionary last year was "integrity." It was looked up 7 million times.

Could be there's a heightened interest and concern with integrity, because of the shameless lack of it in some very high places.

This boxes with the concerns for community that Rev. Gomes has written about and our frequent mentions of the importance of authenticity in products and marketing.

Phonies need not apply.

I'd say that even GM is victim to this interest in straight talk. The company was trying to bop along with extra high prices and extra deep discounts...kind of a phony way to do business, because it treats customers like dopes or pigeons or whatever. Now, on the edge of bankruptcy, the big auto maker has decided to reduce sticker prices and provide less deep discounts.

Uh, have you thought of improving the quality and look of the cars and selling them at a fair price with only modest negotiating room?

Have you thought of providing cars that people really want? Have you thought of getting rid of discursive line extensions?

"As GM goes, so goes the US economy," they used to say. Maybe then. Certainly not now.

Think about a car with integrity and authenticity.

What are you thinking of?

I'll bet it isn't made by GM.

January 9, 2006

2006-01-09T22:04:00.000-05:00

"Surprise Your Customers!"

As I recall, that's one of the admonitions in Selling the Invisible, a very good book that I haven't read in some time.

West Hereford was discussing with me today that well-known consumer journey from awareness to loyalty. We all seek to address successfully every step along that journey, so that we can ultimately earn the loyalty of our customers.

"Surprising" customers is a great way to move more quickly toward loyalty.

On Saturday, I had a personal experience with surprise.

For many, many years one of Charleston's finest antique stores - named for its legendary founder, Jack Patla - has had a small coach and eight horses in the front window. They were made a very long time ago by Britains, the famous manufacturer of toy lead soldiers.

Mr. Patla considered this coach and horses to be a good luck charm, so he never wanted to sell it, even though I tried many times to buy it, since I have a small collection of Britains from my childhood.

His successor at the shop - Peter Loda - also has viewed the coach and horses as a good luck charm, especially since they were so viewed by dear Mr. Patla.

Nevertheless, from time to time, I have asked Peter if he would sell them. He has very nicely said "No," adding that if he ever did sell them he would sell them to me.

Saturday, I noticed that one horseman had lost his head and some of the horses were lying on their side. So I went into the store and joked with Peter that maybe it was time to sell them. He looked carefully at them, remarked that they were indeed dusty, and took them out of the window.

I had never seen them out of the window, and that was quite an event in and of itself.

But then he began to wrap them up. "Are you selling them to me?" I asked in astonishment. "If so, what is the price?"

"No," he said. "I am giving them to you. You have always wanted them. I think they should have a good home. And I know you will give them a good home."

I was speechless. This was such an extraordinary gesture. Such a grand surprise. Such an affirmation that there are wonderfully generous souls in this world even today. And such a tribute not only to Peter but also to Jack Patla who I think would smile with pride that he had passed his store on to someone of such remarkable character.

January 6, 2006

2006-01-06T22:06:00.000-05:00

What's Up with Teens

Matt Mantey passed along a great article from iMedia Connection. Stella Grizont profiles today's teen market, showing how it is the same as it always was, AND how it's different. And, it's different in some important - and encouraging - ways.

One of my favorite books is Peter Gomes' "The Good Book," in which he reviews what the Bible really says about issues like the role of women, slavery, and homosexuality. He intelligently, rationally, and totally debunks the myths perpetrated by the so-called Christian right. (Rev. Gomes is an Episcopalian minister.)

After 9/11, Rev. Gomes wrote another book called "The Good Life," in which he described numerous conversations with young people in America. Most were college students. He was tremendously impressed and optimistic about their sense of responsibility in our world and their commitment to make our world a better place.

I thought of that as I read Stella Grizont's piece. She wrote, "What particularly explains how this generation of teens differs are their core values, creativity, global citizenship and responsibility, and control. It's these values that will endure and continue to affect marketing as they grow up." I find that wonderfully encouraging.

Grizant goes on to tout the importance of authenticity to teens. And, of course, this is something we've been talking about vis a vis all market segments. Authenticity has never been more relevant. Says Grizont about teens, "Their BS meter is a result of formal operational thinking and their social development. As they're struggling to figure it all out, and experimenting with new experiences, teens just need your brand to be straight-up."

Good advice for any brand seeking any market.

January 5, 2006

2006-01-05T20:31:00.000-05:00

With $2.5 Million, You Get Eggroll

Apparently, ABC is selling 30-second Super Bowl spots for $2.5 million and more. (Who says the 30-second spot is dead!!)

Naturally, you get a lot more than a spot for that money. You get people talking about the spot.

All those TV/cable/Internet features on Super Bowl spots...print media converage...and endless blogs, chatrooms, etc. add so much muscle and staying power to Super Bowl spots that the actual air time is relatively insignificant. There are fewer and fewer venues in which an advertiser can make a big splash. The Super Bowl is still one of them.

Internet Sales Records Over Holidays

There's lots of interesting take-aways from this year's boom in holiday sales over the Internet.

It was a record year. Online consumer spending topped the 2004 holiday season by 25-30%, depending upon your research resource. In fact, online purchases accounted for 27% of holiday spending.

I find four aspects of this year's online sales especially interesting:

First, people shopped later both online and offline. That's a harbinger of even closer-in decision-making periods for vacation travel and other purchasing decisions...so that affects virtually everyone's media planning.

Second, many major retail sites were significantly improved this year, resulting in much stronger sales. Wal-Mart did an especially good job improving their site and ended up the number three best selling site of the season (behind Amazon and eBay). Raising the bar in site design and functionality means that those who don't stay competitive will fall way behind.

Third, free shipping is a major incentive offered by online retailers. L.L. Bean, for example, credits free shipping with the fact that - for the first time - their site generated more revenue than was generated by phone orders to their catalogue. (79% of online retailers offered free shipping.)

Fourth, I think that the increase in online sales is, in part attributable to people feeling increasingly time-starved. Convenience means more today than it meant last year. And that means we all need to think of ways in which our product or service responds to this trend.

January 4, 2006

2006-01-04T20:19:00.000-05:00

Not Since Dewey Beat Truman

The horrible snafu in many morning papers today reported that all but one of the trapped miners was alive.

Go to the web or turn on any broadcast media, and you found out that - in fact - all but one had died.

In media terms, it glaringly demonstrated the plight of newspapers trying to stay relevant in terms of being current. Personally, I see that as a lost battle; the great value of newspapers can and should be in the depth of their reporting and the intelligence of their opinion pieces. What has traditionally been the 'back of the paper' now needs to take center stage.

Unfortunately, some papers are facing their economic woes by cutting costs and reducing the quality of their product...which only makes them even less relevant.

Can You Hear Me Now?

New York Magazine recently highlighted some of the non-traditional ways advertisers can reach their targets. They included sidewalk chalking ($150 to $350 per image per day), mobile billboard trucks ($5,000 per 50-hour week), subway cars ($44,000 to cover 25% of a train's interior ad spaces), digital subway-entrance ads ($274,000 for six ten-second spots every minute on each of the city's 80 digital displays), and naming rights to the new Jets-Giants stadium (at least a $12 million one-time cost).

These are just tip-of-the-iceberg alternative media vehicles. Wanna get real creative, check out things with our media director Michelle Evans. The endless ideas astound and envigorate me.

Super Luxury on Its Way

Sally Horchow's article on shopping in Las Vegas talks about all the wall-to-wall luxury (multiple Vuitton stores, Gucci stores, Prada stores, etc.). Trend spotters say that super luxury will really break out this year.

After all, if the masses are basking in what we have all come to think of as "luxury," then the bar needs to be raised higher.

And it will be.

Look for even more expensive fashion, travel, and resort products and services, as well as much higher-end cars, watches and other 'toys.'

I heard a couple in Italy saying how fortunate they were to have found a room in a particular luxury hotel for only $2,500. Were they kidding? No.

The high end is getting much, much higher. A real opportunity for luxury marketers.

January 3, 2006

2006-01-03T23:18:00.000-05:00

We're back from Palau where we had a first-hand experience with great customer service. We had chartered a boat for several days, but there were some problems and we cancelled that part of the trip after paying for it in full. When we explained the situation to the general manager of the tour company the next day, he offered to refund the entire payment, including a deposit made almost one year ago.

By doing so, he chose to ignore a strict cancellation policy. But he made an advocate for his company, and he wisely recognized that advocates are worth gold especially in today's media-cluttered world.

After preaching great customer service all year long, it feels wonderful to take a vacation and actually be the recipient of it.

Shopping Sense

Sally Horchow knows a thing or three about shopping. After all, her father is the legendary Roger Horchow. Her Times article about shopping in Las Vegas reminds me how important all of the senses are to the shopping experience.

Having traipsed through many a Vegas shopping spot (and there are LOTS of them), she ends up at Steve Wynn's new Wynn Resort. She was tired and her feet ached. So, what did that master marketer Steve Wynn greet her with? "The comfort of the plush, parasol-patterned carpet." Sally was in heaven. And, why did she make a major purchase at Wynn's Louis Vuitton Shop, having passed by two other Vuitton shops in other locales? "Because of these serene surroundings, the perfectly controlled mild temperature, and the relative comfort of th the carpeted floor."

It seems as though products - no matter what they are - almost become commodities. What we all buy is the sensory experience that surrounds them.

Book Smarts

I was interested to read that the sales of business books have been declining. And many of today's best-selling business books are titles that have been around for some time (like Good to Great and Who Moved My Cheese?).

There are still a bunch of helpful reads out there for marketing insights. The latest one I've read was touted by the Booz Allen publication as the best marketing book of 2005. It's ProfitBrand by Nick Wreden. And, like so many other business books, it has a plain-vanilla subtitle: How to Increase the Profitability, Accountability & Sustainability of Brands.

Most of this book is about analyzing the profitability (or potential profitability) of your various customer segments and then marketing to those segments in ways that will resonate most powerfully with them. Saying we've moved from a customer economy to a demand economy, Wreden presents a coherent picture of today's marketing landscape. He says that our target is no longer market segments, but profitable customers; that customer insight is no longer databases and analysis, but customer collaboration.

Indeed, we do not define our brands. Our customers do.

December 14, 2005

2005-12-14T13:52:00.000-05:00

We Pause Now, for Station Identification

I'm bursting with new ideas and information, having been traveling most of the past couple of weeks and gathering up all kinds of tidbits.

But it will have to wait. As tomorrow, at the crack of dawn, we leave for Palau to go diving and relaxing at the other side of the world. We will be without contemporary forms of communications, so I plan to read a bunch of books ranging from "Praying for Gil Hodges" to Ernst Gombrich's history of the world which he wrote in six weeks when he was only 26 years old.

This is such a great story. He was an editor at a publishing house, given the assignment of editing a history of the world that was written for young readers. He thought the book was so lame that he told his boss he thought he could write a better one. The boss said, fine...do it. But I need it in 6 weeks. Gombrich did it. And his book has only recently become available in English, translated by him shortly before his recent death. Isn't that a great story?

(Gombrich, of course, is also the author of the best art survey book ever written: "The Story of Art.")

Anyway...so much to absorb and experience! We come back January 3, and so will my blog entries.

Merry Christmas.

December 3, 2005

2005-12-03T18:50:00.000-05:00

The VW Story

I love my Volkswagen Phaeton. It's perfect. But, two years after the launch of this car that has been reviewed favorably against the best luxury cars available, VW is not going to sell Phaetons any more in this country.

What happened is that a company that has been super smart in its marketing from Day One may have made a mis-step in its Phaeton launch.

From the start, VW was a classic example of smart marketing. The company brought its first cars to this country in 1949. For a decade, they depended essentially upon publicity and word of mouth. By 1959, VW was the best-selling imported car in America.

Then they launched their legendary "think small" campaign, and made a successful brand even more successful.

In an era of big cars, VW came in and claimed a new category - small cars - for itself. Then they built the brand with pr and stengthened it with advertising.

That's a success formula that Al Ries praises in his book, "The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR." According to Ries, "Advertising should follow PR in both timing and theme. The theme of an advertising program should repeat the perception created in the mind of the prospect by the PR program."

Publicity builds brands. Advertising maintains and strengthens them.

"Advertising is insurance," says Ries. "That is, advertising protects a brand from competitive attacks. Advertising is the price you pay to maintain your brand's position in the mind."

VW was on a roll. But, when they decided to bring out the Phaeton to compete with the Lexus 500 series, the Mercedes 500 series, and the BMW 700 series, they may have made a classic marketing error.

Think back on Toyota and its luxury model. Rather than a line extension, Toyota introduced an entirely new brand: Lexus.

So, too, did Honda create Acura, and Nissan create Infiniti.

They are all successful.

But VW stuck with its own name and simply put a model name on the Phaeton, not a new brand name. As such, they couldn't convince consumers that the masters of simple cars (the VW bug et al) could create a truly competitive luxury car. So they struck out...at least in this country.

There are lessons both in the many years of VW's success and in the company's failure adequately to differentiate and position its fabulous Phaeton.

November 27, 2005

2005-11-27T13:57:00.000-05:00

Seem as You Want to Be

That's an old - but ever-relevant - addage of public relations: Seem as you want to be.

Yesterday, the New Orleans Zoo re-opened, and the director's display quote in our paper was, "This is a time of sadness in this city."

Well, it may be a "time of sadness," but communicating that negative message - instead of a positive message of hope - makes the "sadness" even more of a reality.

There's a prominent antique dealer in New Orleans - I can't remember his name - and he frequently has very important auctions. He has one coming up, and he has made a point of advising his numerous out-of-town clients that there are good places to stay...there are good places to eat...and visitors to New Orleans can, in fact, have a terrific experience. He is not denying that major parts of the city have been tragically devastated. But he is focusing on what's up and running, and he is presenting a realistic and positive opportunity.

That's just the right attitude, and it's one that can become a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Meanwhile, Atlanta has positioned itself with the following slogan: "Every day is opening day."

Will someone please tells me what that means?

November 22, 2005

2005-11-22T20:51:00.000-05:00

Today's Bicycle

I'm intrigued with a small 19th century tricycle I saw recently. Well, I want to buy it, because it's such a beautiful patina-rich object. But also because, in my youth, a bicycle was a symbol of independence.

For today's children, the symbol of independence is the Internet.

Apparently, by their seventh birthday, most U.S. kids will have talked on a cell phonne, played a computer game and mastered a TV-on-demand device like TiVo. By 13, they will have gone through several software editions of instant messaging, frequented online chat rooms, and downloaded their first illegal song from BitTorrent.

Today's 'bicycle' catalyzes a generation of short-attention-span children who are constantly multi-tasking.

The speed and precision with which we must engage their minds with our messages is awesome.

No wonder then....

Fox Broadcasting introduced 5-second spots for AOL at the end of commercial blocks in "Prison Break" the other night.

And no wonder then....

Interactive ad revenues jumped 34% in the third quarter vs. last year. Spending for the quarter topped $3.1 billion, up from $2.3 billion last year.

With independence comes opportunity!

Bye Bye Miss American Pie

I had lunch over at the College and walked back to the Business School campus in time for a 1:20 class. I walked into the classroom and immediately noticed Bob Koh's eyes reddened from crying. I looked around. Others seemed similarly stunned. What could possibly turn these future 'captains of industry' into such lost lambs? It was November 22nd. Twenty-two years ago. The day the music died.

November 21, 2005

2005-11-21T22:34:00.000-05:00

Nikki, regarding your thoughts on ads and art...no, I can't think of any ads that I'd characterize as 'art.' Ads are so of-the-moment. They are designed to engage and entangle us right now. And that's a function of the context of our lives. Where are we when we're viewing the ad? What is the context for the ad...what programs appear next to it...what are the adjacent editorial pages in the magazine...etc.

By definition, then, ads are creatures of context.

Art, on the other hand, endures so much longer and takes on so much more meaning over time. Especially good art.

Did you read the story yesterday about the women who posed for Giocometti sculptures more than half a century ago? One woman said that she didn't think the sculpture resembled her at all at the time. Then, as the years passed, she began to realize that it captured her in an extraordinarily perceptive and enduring way. One model even said that she felt like the inanimate object, while the sculpture had the true life.

Those kinds of transcendent characterizations simply do not apply to advertising.

Well, that's my opinion.

You Gotta Have a Gimmick

We've talked a lot about the importance of having a brand position that can be communicated in two or three words...a position that not only describes your product or service, but also differentiates you from the competition.

Waiting for a light to change on the streets of New York last week, I noticed a flyer taped onto the nearby light pole: "NYC's Toughest Personal Trainer." Well, there's a clear differentiation for you. Right to the point. That trainer carves out a powerful position in four words. Very cool.

(And if you want to avail yourself next time you're in town, call 212-946-2090.)

Marketing ROI

I'm reading a book about it now, because I'm intrigued to learn more about how others measure the effectiveness of their marketing. It's even more relevant now as the interactive advertising boom is fueled in part by its benefit of measurability.

I'm all for accountability. But I think we have to be careful. So often, what's easy to measure is not what's most important. For example, think of why you love your wife?

I was reading about Leo Bogart, one of the great thinkers in the advertising industry. (He died recently.) Bogart said, "The Great Idea in advertising is far more than the sum of the recognition scores, the ratings, and all the other superficial indicators of its success. It is in the realm of myth, to which measurements cannot apply."

November 17, 2005

2005-11-17T08:04:00.000-05:00

Big Help or Big Brother?

The Mandarin Hotel people now have a remarkable service in some of their hotels. As a regular customer, you enter your room and the temperature is set the way you want, your phone has your personalized answering message along with your favorite numbers on speed dial, the music you like to listen to is wafting over the sound system, and your minibar is stocked with the things you like. The list goes on, but you get the idea. It's all about recording people's behavior and then "playing it back" to them on their next visit.

It is the ultimate "have it your way" hotel experience.

But what if "your way" varies? Mmmm. No, you can't do that...not here in Stepford.

What Mandarin is doing is really no different than Amazon telling us what they think we'd like to read. It's just more personal.

I think it's misplaced. That is, when a store knows what we might want and saves us time in making either decisions or purchases, that's a valuable service. Mostly because it saves us time.

But how much time does it take to adjust a thermostat or change a TV channel?

What's stunning to me is the technology that enables the hotel to know virtually everything that has gone on in your room. In the wrong hands.....

Give a Little Something

Ralph Edwards, the creator of "Truth or Consequences" and "This is Your Life" has died. In his obituary, they note that once during a radio show in the midst of World War II, Edwards suggested that his listeners send a penny to a woman in Staten Island New York who wanted to plan a homecoming for her Marine son. More than 300,000 pennies were sent in.

So it made me wonder why more TV and radio personalities today don't use their platform, their power, and their air every single day to encourage their audiences to support one cause or another.

And then it made me think of that Edward R. Murrow speech that bookends George Clooney's brilliant film "Good Night and Good Luck." Murrow suggested that every few weeks the most popular TV shows should give up their time slots to programs on the major issues of the day.

It was a brilliant idea. Sure, it sounds idealistic. But what are the consequences of an uniformed or misinformed public? Just look at our country today and you see for yourself.

I see this as "program tithing," and I wish the networks would do it....just as I wish that the Lenos, Lettermans, Montels, and Marthas would use their influence and reach to regularly encourage their audiences to help out the many, many needy people in our world.

November 14, 2005

2005-11-14T22:31:00.000-05:00

On the Road to Recovery

Mississippi recently ran an ad in the Wall Street Journal touting the state's new resolve to economic development post-Katrina. "Amid the debris, Mississippi found its future," claims the headline over a gloomy orange/black image of Katrina's devastation.

The body copy talks about the state's newly coordinated resources and commitment "to building one of the most advanced economic infrastructures in the country."

I admire the state for taking a positive approach and coming out fighting with a message of pride and commitment. And I'm reminded of how the Charleston economic development community really began to pull together after Hurricane Hugo in 1989...and again, when the Navy Base closure was announced in 1993.

The color orange is unfortunate for this message. One hardly associates orange with hope. Maybe they think it's sunshine. But it looks like Halloween.

What do these devastated areas do now? I had a very long interview with a reporter from the New Orleans Times Picayune who was asking just that. She heard that we were very involved in post-Hugo communications, and she wondered what we did that was especially effective.

I think there were four keys to effective communications at that time. The first is a constant in our business: keep people informed all the time with the best possible information at your disposal. Second, communicate a message of hope. This was so tragically missing in New Orleans. There was no message of hope. Third, communicate the specific needs of the citizens of your community to those who can help meet those needs. And fourth, let the world outside know that you are not defeated and they should continue to visit, do business, and have confidence in your area.

Those are somewhat tricky waters to navigate, especially all at once. But it's clearly the key to a successful rebound.

On the Value of Great Art

Art, I believe, is a mighty powerful communicator. Some of the best art communications are the drawings of artists, because you can more readily see how the image comes together...there's a sense of immediacy that is diminished in more time-consuming work like painting and sculpture.

Michael Kimmelman recently wrote about the fantastic exhibition of Van Gogh drawings presently at the Met Museum in New York. It's the last line of his paragraph that I find so very true:

"As they say, in the flesh great art, no matter how often it has been dully reproduced or mistaken for a price tag or overrun by crowds, somehow retains its dignity and originality. It slows your system and demands that you stop and look afresh."

"Looking afresh" is exactly what we try to do in our business. Finding smart new ways to engage consumers with powerful brands. Art can give us powerful inspiration.

November 13, 2005

2005-11-13T17:36:00.000-05:00

Overload?

I read that - on average - a new blog is launched every second.

I also read that about 35 million workers - one in four people in the workforce - visit blogs and spend an average of 3.5 hours (9% of the work week) engaged with them.

Blogs are a powerful trend, and it's very difficult to anticipate what their ultimate impact will be.

For sure, they add to the transparency of news. That is, there's not much that can be hidden from or by the media. This could lead constructively to a more open society. But it could also lead to a culture acting upon mis-information, as the flow of blog info is so swift, sometimes at the expense of accuracy. (Well, that's always been a threat in any news-deadline context, I suppose.)

What is especially exciting is the possibility that workers (and others) are using blogs to explore ideas and interests that they don't have the opportunity to pursue in the normal course of their lives. What will that mean, though?

Line Extension

Many marketers have always been suspicious of line extensions. They fear that line extensions dilute the brand and make take management's eye off the core business.

I wonder, then, what the effect will be of Whole Foods testing small adjacent shops that carry lifestyle products like organic jeans, recycled glass plates, and low-toxicity paints.

They launched one in West Hollywood after testing it successfully in Austin.

Irrespective of whether this venture is successful, I think we'll see lots more movement into earth-friendly products.

Meanwhile, what gives with Kleenex?

Yes, Kleenex.

There was a powerful full-page ad in The Times last week with the headline:

"How to destroy the boreal, North America's largest ancient forest, in 3 easy steps:

"Step 1: Pull out a Kleenex facial tissue

"Step 2: Put it to your nose

"Step 3: Blow"

The ad goes on to say that Kleenex is destroying thousands of tons of trees to make disposable tissue products instead of choosing more recycled fiber and less trees and committing to environmentally sound logging operations.

This high-impact ad is sponsored by NRDC and Greenpeace. I think it really packs a whollop.

November 8, 2005

2005-11-08T22:34:00.000-05:00

I gave such a lousy interview to Joan Mack today, and I am very disappointed. I was really looking forward to it. Joan was a major TV anchor here and she has developed a very successful interview show that is on public radio throughout the state. Somehow, I never got into the subject matter, because I was responding to general questions in a general way.

Just as we play better tennis when someone is hitting the ball harder than we are, so too we can easily roll back to easy answers to easy questions. But that's letting others drive the energy in the room...and that makes no sense at all.

After the mikes were off, I went on this riff about the challenges for women entrepreneurs which I wish had been recorded for the show. Because I could feel the passion and the facts flowing, as I made a case for changing the culture in this part of the world with respect to women in business.

I'm so interested to see the role models of women in business. Some of them are wonderfully successful AND wonderfully supportive to other women. Then there are those - WE know who THEY are - who figure they've made it on their own and every other woman is going to have to make it on their own as well.

That incredible selfishness is so shocking and saddening to me. What greater pleasure in the world is there beyond helping others? These tough mamas are really missing the true fun in life.

The Center for Women here is trying to break patterns by having entrepreneurs speak and then have multiple round-table discussions of topics related to the talks. Last night, Bob Siegel - the chairman and CEO of Lacoste USA - made a great presentation, and then 20+ tables of attendees engaged in individual discussion groups.

So smart, I thought, to get people participating. So much more effective than having Bob speak and then calling it a night.

This inclusion of interactivity is increasingly vital in effective communications.

The days of dishing it out are over.

The days of dialogue are now and forever.

Does YOUR marketing include and encourage a dialogue?

How could it do more??

November 3, 2005

2005-11-03T21:32:00.000-05:00

Harry and David Get It

The other day, we were writing about how retailers are starting so early with their holiday promotions, because they anticipate a weak retail selling season. I don't happen to think that starting early is going to solve the problem.

I don't think you can fool people. And I wouldn't want to try. What's threatening this holiday season is cost...the cost of gas and the cost of everything that is affected by gas....and that would be practically everything. (I saw a red bell pepper in the supermarket the other day that would cost a half-hour's worth of the net pay of a minimum wage employee.)

So, starting early doesn't really address the problem.

Harry and David, the legendary fruit-and-more direct marketers, announce on the cover of their current holiday catalog "Same low shipping and handling. Shop now, don't pay until February. Save 10% (free coupon inside)."

Well, that's EXACTLY what today's consumer wants to hear. All of us are sick of the energy surcharges slamming us on anything we order or buy. And saving 10%? That sounds great!

Successful retailers this holiday season - I think - will give customers what they want (discounts on products, and more reasonable shipping costs)...not just what they, the retailers want.

New Stats on Diversity Market

We've also written a lot about the fast-growing Hispanic market. How interesting to read in the latest PRSA publication that "The buying power of blacks, Asians, and Native Americans will exceed $1.7 trillion by 2010, an increase of 268% from 1990."

Recent U.S. Census statistics predict that, by 2050, the Hispanic populaton will grow to 102 million, or 24% of the total population. The black population will be 61 million, or 15%.

There's another compelling statistic from the Census people that doesn't relate to diversity, but it sure does demonstrate the impact of the aging boomers: By 2050, there will be 86.7 million, or 21% of the total population, over 65.

We're already seeing significant trends in marketing to these audience segments. Look for more. And, think of how your product and service can best resonate with these dynamic constituencies.

November 2, 2005

2005-11-02T18:45:00.000-05:00

Stark Contrast

Wasn't it Nixon's pal Mitchell who said, "Watch what we do. Don't listen to what we say."

This morning, I was watching what Karl Rove's boss was doing. Clearly, Rove is so distracted by the prospect of wearing an orange suit that he's not attending properly to W's public image.

So there we are, in the middle of the morning, America watching the cable news channels, hearing the story of Rosa Parks - who epitomized this country in terms of demonstrating the Power of the Individual - and viewing the scene of the celebration of her extraordinary life....

And then the cameras cut to W and the missus greeting Prince Charles and his wife on the manicured lawn in front of the stately plantation-style columns of the White House.

Cut then from the stiff handshakes and sterile photo op in DC, back to the Rosa Parks love-in where Bill Clinton was being embraced by all the regular folk in Detroit...genuine energy and connectivity vs. the man in the bubble.

What an incredible contrast. We were looking at the two sides of the American Revolution in close juxtaposition. And the so-called leader of America had jumped back to the other side with all of its insensitivity about the true feelings and needs of human beings.

A stunning moment in communications.

November 1, 2005

2005-11-01T22:47:00.000-05:00

Santa Arriving Early...and Often

Anticipating a weak holiday sales season, many retailers are starting early...very early.

They figure that high fuel prices (for cars...and for heating consumers' homes) are going to dampen holiday spirits...especially when the weather turns colder.

The Postal Service, for example, figures that a penny increase in the price of gas has an $8 million impact on the Postal Service's bottom line.

Remember when holiday season advertising began at Thanksgiving? This year, it started for many in mid October...the earliest time ever.

Only time will tell if fourth quarters do well because of this early push. My money is that all this early bird stuff will have a minimal to negative impact. It just seems to me that the early advertising is being done for the benefit of the retailers. Where's the benefit for the consumers?

I'll bet that the January sales start early too....maybe in mid December. Then the retailers will really be shooting themselves in the foot.

Google Rocks

There's a great piece on Google in the Sunday Times. Check out this fact:

This year, Google will sell $6.1 billion in ads, nearly double what it sold last year. That is more advertising than is sold by any newspaper chain, magazine publisher, or television network. By next year, Goldman Sach's analyst expects Google to have advertising revenues of $9.5 billion. That would place it fourth among American media companies in total ad sales after Viacom, the News Corporation, and the Walt Disney Company, but ahead of giants including NBC Universal and Time Warner.

Read that again, and just think about it! Wow!!

October 30, 2005

2005-10-30T21:32:00.000-05:00

Nikki, I haven't seen that Ford commercial. But it sounds good. Advertising works. Your 128-page November issue proves it. I'm impressed that Ford is promoting hybrids. The real question is, are they practicing conservation or just trying to sell it? And are they demanding demonstrations of conservation from their suppliers? Companies the size of Ford can have an enormous impact if they set conservation standards for their suppliers. That could really make a difference.

Turning 30

Our firm celebrated its 30th Anniversary on Friday. Our real anniversary was actually seven months ago, but we were too busy then - as we're too busy now - to properly observe it. So we decided, "Let's do something in late October," figuring that was a long way away.

Well, it suddenly became late October, and we put together a great celebration (mostly thanks to Michele Crull). I hadn't been overly interested in the occasion, because I didn't want to focus attention on ourselves. After all, our entire focus is the needs and goals of our clients.

But, as it turned out, I found that I really appreciated the opportunity to stop for a moment and look at what we've done, take pride in what we've accomplished, remind ourselves what we stand for, and visit with a representation of good people with whom we have worked over these past three decades.

And it made me think that this is something we need to do more often on a small scale....among ourselves, between ourselves and our clients, and between ourselves and the other companies with whom we work. Tell each other how it's going, what we feel we've accomplished together, what we stand for, what we hope to achieve in the future.

Bridge Builders

Len Green told me this story the other night. When the various people who wanted to get bike and pedestrian lanes built into the plan for the new Cooper River Bridge a few years ago, they took an unusually positive - and effective - approach.

They wanted to create the impression that accommodating bikers and walkers was a foregone conclusion...when, in fact, the Department of Transportation had no intention of accommodating them.

So they created bumper stickers that said "Can't wait to bike the new bridge" and "Can't wait to walk the new bridge."

Then they did something gutsy and brilliant. They bought a full-page ad in the newspaper thanking the Department of Transportation for putting bike and pedestrian lanes in their plans for the new bridge. DOT had not done that at all, but suddenly the Department was deluged with praise for the bike and pedestrian lanes...and they were forced to include them.

Smart move. Not only on the part of the special interest groups. But also on the part of DOT.

October 25, 2005

2005-10-25T22:30:00.000-04:00

How Leaders Get Through Troubled Times

Fast Company has the results of a survey asking readers how a leader would best get through troubled times. The number one response - by more than 2-to1 was "By keeping everyone informed." (52%).

And yet it's amazing to see many so-called leaders hunker down and hide the truth. They may "communicate," but they don't "inform." They don't shoot straight, come clean about problems, and communicate with true transparency.

It's not about 'spin.' It's about truth. People gravitate to truth, no matter what the message is.

We have some great clients who tell us as soon as they know about something big that's happening...good or bad. They ask us how best to keep people informed. They don't want us to sugar coat the facts. They rightfully believe that if they tell people what they know, people will feel that they are respected and trusted, and they will endow their leaders with those same qualities: respect and trust.

van Gogh Drawings

I saw an extraordinary exhibit of drawings by Vincent van Gogh. He was a self-taught artist whose painting career didn't span much more than 10 years. And yet he was extraordinarily prolific.

I was struck by the way he drew the same scene many times, interpreting it slightly differently each time. I realized how limited I am when I think there's only one creative answer for a client. That's simply not the case. There are many answers, each of which has something distinctive to commend it.

Cezanne always said he wasn't painting the landscape or the still life itself, as much as he was painting the feeling that his subject matter engendered. So, what's the feeling that represents a particular product or service we're trying to communicate...and which creative approach most compelling evokes that feeling. That's the winner.

We are very fortunate that van Gogh left incredible records of the thoughts and motivations for his art, as he wrote numerous letters to his brother Theo. In a way, these documents are the "creative briefs" for what van Gogh produced. The words help clarify what he was trying to achieve, and - as with a creative brief - having those words helps one recognize whether the execution is on target with its desired goal.

October 18, 2005

2005-10-18T21:50:00.000-04:00

Supermarket Blues

The average American household made 95 trips a year to the supermarket in 1996. In 2004, it was 70 (according to investment bank UBS). During the same period, annual trips to stores like Wal-Mart increased from 13 to 26. And trips to clubs stores like Costco went from 8 to 11.

Does that mean that traditional supermarkets are dying? I don't think so. Some may be dying, because they're not offering anything of significant value in today's marketplace. But go to Piggly Wiggly and then go to Wal-Mart and the difference in the store experience is extraordinary.

I did this recently and couldn't wait to get back to the Pig.

Sure, many of the prices are lower at Wal-Mart. And money matters. But so does quality and relationship. And service and connection.

Smart stores like Piggly Wiggly are adding some of the organic foods and other high-end foods that attract customers to Whole Foods and Wild Oats. But they are also providing a quality of shopping experience that transcends pennies saved. Or even dollars.

We live in a scary world. They closed a major bridge in Baltimore today because of a terrorist threat. More than 100,000 are dead from an earthquake in Pakistan. Triple the number of injured are being flown from Iraq to Germany each week. Our nation's deficits seem to be out of control. On and on it goes.

Grocery shopping is a necessary part of our lives. Doesn't it feel good and make sense to make this necessary experience a pleasant, enjoyable and even friendly one?

I'm stickin' with the Pig.

This Bud's for Who

How do you feel about the beer companies promoting beer-drinking games and pretending that players are only drinking water?

Interesting issue in marketing ethics.

You want people to buy and use your product. But you have a product that - when over-used - is a real problem...a real killer.

Someone comes up with an idea to sell more of your product, but it may encourage over-use.

Do you buy the idea?

And, if your answer is, yes but with messages of moderation...how do you make those messages anything other than empty?

October 14, 2005

2005-10-14T09:53:00.000-04:00

"Desperate Housewives" On the Move

Our geek-in-residence, Jay Stecher, doesn't look like a geek...but he is head-over-pocket-protector over the new iPod. He's already dreaming up applications for our clients...video workshops, video home tours, episodic advertorials, etc.

He has espoused on these, along with a list of Ten Trends to Watch that he gathered somewhere in cyberspace:

1. Portability of video content
2. Blogs
3. The rise of celebrity weeklies
4. Media transparency
5. The growth of Hispanic market
6. Business woes for newspapers
7. Digitalization of print media
8. Media consolidation
9. Source agnostic/disintermediation
10. Refining media measurement

With so much going on, how could anyone get bored in our business?!

Lexus Listens to Customers

Ed Wax told me about the new Lexus hybrid SUV. He said that the company did customer research and discovered that much of their market will be from environmentalists. So, they eliminated any wood trim on the interior. Clever move. Wouldn't want those customers thinking Lexus was wasting trees.

Advertising Non-Profits

We were talking about this the other day. And I recently had a chat with a major consultant to non-profits who was bemoaning the fact that non-profits often lack the necessary commitment to get their stories out.

He told me about a board meeting of a major non-profit in Atlanta. The institution's leadership said that they were really going to make a commitment to marketing, allocating a total of $500,000 to it. A Coca-Cola exec who was on the board inquired, "What are you going to do the second month?"

Non-profits - like for-profits - need to make consistent commitments to communications. And they need to fund them properly. Especially in this tough economic time when there are so many demands upon philanthropic resources.

October 11, 2005

2005-10-11T17:41:00.000-04:00

Bell South is busting my chops. I haven't been able to get online at home for several days. It's both liberating and confining. Are we sure we want the world we are creating?

Challenging Times for Non-Profits

Non-profits are feeling the sqeeze. Not only is our economy making it tougher on people, but the wonderful outpouring of support for the victims of Katrina and Rita makes it more challenging for other non-profits to get their piece of the pie.

Marketing, then, becomes increasingly important. A recent AMA Foundation study reported that for 78% of Americans, trust in a non-profit organization is the most important factor when considering a donation.

Well, that's like every survey on political candidates. What's most important? Trust.

But you can't go around saying "Trust me." You've got to act in such a way that you earn people's trust. What makes you trust a person or an organization?

First of all, do they do what they say they're going to do?

Are they consistent (as in purposeful)?

Are they open and transparent?

Do they listen well and respond accordingly?

As marketing and communications professionals, we can counsel our non-profit clients to look at these and other ways that they can distinguish themselves and consider how we can help them best communicate these positive attributes.

A leader of a major non-profit said to us today that he was very impressed with the intelligence of potential donors. That is, they really do their homework and learn what's going on. I think he's right. Smart marketing helps non-profits make a compelling, intelligent case for their support. And, in these challenging economic times, smart marketing will be more vital to the success of any non-profit.

Secrets of Success

A recent article points out some of the ways that Crispin Porter has distinguished itself in our industry. One is that they recognize the importance of the work. Yes, relationships are important - very important. But, at the end of the day, it's the work that matters most. Great results - driven by great work - bind you closer and longer to your clients than any number of shared rounds of golf.

Crispin Porter also fully integrates its media and creative initiatives, as we have always done. So many traditional advertising agencies continue to separate these disciplines that we believe are totally interrelated. It thrills me to see the active interchange of ideas between our media and creative specialists.

And, Crispin Porter has been crystal clear about who they are and what they stand for. That's admirable too.

Chuck Porter did work with us years ago, and we are all absolutely delighted with his success and the success of his great firm. We can all learn from it.

October 5, 2005

2005-10-05T23:12:00.000-04:00

On Prejudice

Prejudice is so insidious. And it resides in us all. Recognizing and figuring out how to deal with prejudices is a key component of effective communications.

We have so many preconceptions and so many past experiences imprinted in our brains that we come to practically any encounter with a strong set of prejudices (prejudgments).

I noticed it this morning at a board committee meeting. Like most non-profit boards, this one has a specific mission, and its board members tend to see that mission in stronger shades of black and white than - perhaps - the general public. A guest speaker who represents an organization that may not always be in sync with the mission of this board made what I thought was a balanced and responsible presentation. But I tend to feel favorable toward this speaker and believe strongly in the mission of his organization.

So, I brought my prejudices to the meeting....as did others.

Those who were not naturally sympathetic to the speaker's organization tended to be less impressed than I. For some of them, I wondered whether there was anything he could have said that they would have truly embraced.

I asked Carol once what she thought made a good marriage, and she said understanding how the other person is feeling.

The same goes for effective communications. What's the other person feeling? What are your audiences' prejudices? What can you say or do that will acknowledge them and turn them around to your advantage?

The Limits of Advertising

"Brand integration" is when a particular product pops up frequently in a television program or motion picture. The brand becomes an integral part of the entertainment...it really goes beyond product placement. There are now companies and divisions of major agencies specializing in this new method of subtly exposing audiences to advertisers' products.

The advertising lines are fuzzier than ever.

I notice this, too, on public radio...where now the "brought to you by...." credits often extend into rather lengthy [dare I say] commercials!

Personally, I think the ever-expanding ways in which we can reach consumers are wonderfully exciting and challenging. They encourage us to think way beyond traditional solutions and really put a premium on brain power.