“I went to school on Tom’s ideas!”
Jeff Taylor, Founder, Monster.com
A Clear Eye.
On customers, brands and marketplace success
by Tom Asacker
“I went to school on Tom’s ideas!”
Jeff Taylor, Founder, Monster.com
Have you ever received one of these lame direct mail pieces (click to enlarge) that are designed to look like a heartfelt note from a long lost friend? Each envelope is painstakingly addressed by hand in imperfect (human) handwriting, which compels you to open it.
Ten points for step one of any piece of marketing, which is to gain attention.
Inside is what looks like a page ripped out of a newspaper with a sticky note attached that reads:
[Your first name], Check this out!! - J
It creates curiosity, right? Who the hell is J? Is it John? Jimmy? Maybe it's Julie! Hmm . . . I wonder why whomeveritis would send me a clipping about a local car dealer from a rag called Automotive Insider.
Let me Google it.
So . . . Automotive Insider is a promotion run by "automotive marketing pioneers" at The Premier Group. Okay, I see. The sole intent of the pioneering piece of marketing was to try to sell me something. Something I'm not even interested in.
There is no "J." My friends aren't thinking about me. And I was a damn fool for opening it. Ha, ha . . . you caught me. Jerks!
Someone please get on the phone with all of these desperate companies and help them out before they piss off more people and destroy any chance in hell of making a sale. Tell them I sent you. :)
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Bob Costas knows baseball, but by evidence of his statements to Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin - U.S. Olympic silver and gold medalists, teammates, friends and Beijing roommates - he really doesn't get gymnastics:
"You have to compete and you have to compete fiercely, but from what I've been able to determine this friendship and this mutual respect is very genuine."
Why was his question misguided? Simple. Gymnasts don't compete against each other. Neither do great brands.
Later in the interview, Costas pressed Shawn and asked whether she had changed her approach to her routine towards the end of the competition, because she was "trying to catch" Nastia. Here's her enlightened response:
"I mean, I knew going into floor that Nastia had a huge lead and I was so proud. I mean, I pretty much knew she had the Gold and, honestly, by then, I didn't care, like the score or anything, I just . . I wanted to go out and hit the routine of my life and just finish off this Olympic experience as best as I could. And I have no regrets and I take nothing back. I had a great time and I am so honored to be wearing the silver medal."
Do you compete? Are you like a marathoner or cyclist? Are you trying to "catch" someone. I certainly hope not. The competitive paradigm is an extremely dangerous one in business: it forces you to both compare yourself to, and align your thinking with, others. And inevitably, you begin focusing on the wrong things.
At the start of a race you have a panoptic view, don't you? You’re aware of everything and everyone. But as the race progresses, you tend to focus narrowly on those few runners nearest to you - your "competitors." And what inevitably happens? You get blind-sided.
"I wanted to go out and hit the routine of my life."
As Sir Edmund Hillary said, "It's not the mountain we challenge, it's ourselves." Shawn wasn't competing with Nastia, she was challenging herself. The same is true of great brands. They're 110% focused on their people (customers, employees and community), and they're "routines" are daring and different in their quests to add value to those people's lives. They really are unique.
Gone are the days of the Perfect Ten
See if you can pick up the similarities among the advancements made in gymnastics and the advancements in the modern marketplace (from suite101.com):
"In the 1990s, the ten became more and more difficult to achieve because as difficulty increased, few gymnasts actually started from a ten, and those gymnast who were performing the most difficult routines would have trouble performing them perfectly. In the new system, there are two separate scores, one for difficulty and one for execution. Two separate panels of judges evaluate the difficulty and execution of the routine, and the two scores are added together. The goal of this system is to focus more on the artistry and value of the performance as a whole."
"The artistry and value of the performance as a whole."
Great brands visualize each days "routines," with the goal being to "stick it" every time. They're driven by something inside of them; something that pushes them forward and allows their uniqueness to shine through. This notion that brands need an enemy - someone or something external -to motivate them is a bunch of old, white guy horse hockey.
Take a good look at the brands that need external motivators to get through each day. You know the ones I'm talking about: the ones that blow up their competitor's products at conferences, or wave a fistful of money at their sales people. Those are brands that need the incitement of the competitive ideal, because they have absolutely no idea how to add artistry and value to people's lives.
Sure, those brands may round the next bend with a commanding lead. But then, out of nowhere, they'll encounter a guy named Fosbury.
Phil Fragasso is an experienced marketer, author of the engaging new book Marketing for Rainmakers: 52 Rules of Engagement to Attract and Retain Customers for Life, and a good friend. For the next few weeks, I'm going to choose one of Phil's "rules" to share with you all. And I'm doing it on Friday, because I'm apt to alliterate in August. :) I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.
ROE #40 Choose to Lose
The 14th century French philosopher Jean Buridan created a paradoxical analogy to illustrate the perils of choice. He told the story of an ass standing between two bales of hay of equal size and composition. Unable to decide which bale to eat first, the ass starved to death. Aristotle tells a similar story about a man, weakened by hunger and thirst, who is situated midway between food and water. Paralyzed by the deep-seated human instinct to choose the greater good, the man unduly prolongs his suffering as he fully evaluates the various options and outcomes. And Baruch Spinoza argues that man, faced with two equally appealing choices, cannot make a fully rational decision.
What’s amazing is that all these guys were philosophizing long before the tall-venti-grande-chai-latte-mocha dilemma that we face every day at Starbucks.
So is choice inherently good or bad? The short answer is that some choice is good, but too much choice can be bad. (Remember the Seinfeld episode about “good naked” and “bad naked”? It’s kind of like that.)
The human psyche is a swirling combination of intellect and emotion, and most purchase decisions are based on the latter even if we consciously attribute them to the former. And since people are much more readily overwhelmed with emotion, rather than intellect, you can see where this is going.
As counterintuitive as it sounds, the surest way to lose customers is to give them too many choices. People are inundated with decision-making responsibilities. Think about your own life. Every single day you’re faced with literally hundreds of personal and professional decisions. Take a walk through your local grocery store and if your choice of cereals, shampoos, sodas, detergents, and breads don’t approach a thousand different options then you’re living in the wrong neighborhood.
It didn’t used to be that way. In the old days – back when I was a kid – there were essentially two choices for everything. Coffee was regular or decaf. Sneakers were designed for basketball or tennis. Television channels were UHF or VHF. Telephone service was provided by AT&T or you went without a phone.
It’s a bit different today. We live in a culture of clutter. One good idea begets a hundred imitators. And who, for the most part, is to blame? People like me – professional marketers. We like choice. It makes our jobs more interesting. We can devise ever-more-granular Unique Selling Propositions and we can focus our marketing programs on increasingly narrow target markets.
But what’s good for the marketing goose is not so good for the consuming gander.
Continue reading "Friday with Phil"
This month's short article was inspired by an impassioned conversation with sailor and management consultant Ron Bourque. Read Rough Seas Ahead when you get a minute. And please let me know your thoughts.
If you're interested in receiving notification of new articles by email (along with some random statistics, news and interesting links that you won't find on this blog), you can join the legion of others by entering your email address, clicking the submit button, and then confirming your subscription from Aweber. Thanks! And please note: You'll only receive about one email a month, and I will never disclose you email address. Promise.
Also, if the thought of an article on today's challenging economic environment brings you down a notch, simply watch this short video and I assure you that you will feel better. :-)
It's satire, but so, so true. Have a look.
Congress Struggles To Come Up With Cool Name For Anti-Drug Initiative
Do you keep up with updates to your favorite web sites using an RSS aggregator like Feedblitz or Google Reader? I've used both, and I still do on occasion, but I prefer my personal digital magazine rack. It's a list of blogs and web sites that I often (too often) scan for interesting and relevant content.
At least I used to prefer it. I now use Guy Kawasaki's new digital magazine rack called Alltop - All the top stories covered all the time. For example, check out his new branding section (my blog is top center) and his marketing rack. You can even click on the "x" to hide the content you prefer not to see.
Looks like I wasn't the only one scanning blog posts. Thanks Guy.
"Satire is a lesson, parody is a game." - Vladimir Nabokov
Update: It looks like the video has been removed from YouTube. But I did locate it here: http://tinyurl.com/5zjxx8 Lesson: The Internet is like plutonium. It's forever.
That's not a complete question, is it? Add value to what and for whom, right? Surely you know that advertising adds value to organizations and their brands. If not, study the rise and rise of brands like Nike, Coke, Tide, and Boniva, to name a few.
"But," you quip, channeling Robert Stephens, founder of Geek Squad. "Isn't advertising a tax you pay for unremarkable thinking?" Not always. Toyota, Southwest Airlines and Apple are the most remarkable "thinkers" in their respective industries. So what's up with all of their advertising? Don't be fooled by the noise in the blogosphere. Advertising isn't simply a tool for commodity products trying to appear special. It's also a technique that smart organizations use to add value for their customers.
The latest issue of BusinessWeek magazine has an interesting piece, "Why Avon Is Going Hollywood," exploring the company's investment in celebrity tie-ins. According to Avon's global brand President Geralyn R. Breig, "In market after market, we found that we were meeting women's needs in quality, variety, and innovation. Where we fell short was in the image of the brand." Umm . . . not really.
It is not the "image of the brand" that's lacking in this case. Women don't have a problem with the "image" of Avon products, leadership or sales representatives. What's lacking is women's image of themselves as purchasers and users of the Avon brand. Do you see the difference? Avon is using celebrities to enhance the aesthetic experience, the "feeling" of being an Avon customer, by associating the brand with good-looking, likable celebrities like Reese Witherspoon.
Most organizations get this wrong. They believe that their image is what creates the brand bond. "Me. me, me," they shout. "Look at me!" But it's simply not true. Sure, transactional brands - brands selected for a single-minded purpose - are all about their images. For instance, a celebrity like Reese, is chosen by Avon primarily for her . . . celebrity, so that Avon can use that celebrity for its purposes. But that's the extent of their "relationship."
Most celebrity brands are transactional brands. They're all about creating attention for themselves and transferring it to their customers. Most are really not that interested in their customers beyond that transactional arrangement (that's why "difficult" celebrities continue to command top dollar). Unless, of course, they're selling something associated with their own brands and are therefore rightly concerned about negative word-of-mouth. Think Oprah and Martha and Rachel Ray.
On the other hand, brands that create passionate, repeat customers are process brands. They are acutely aware of, and totally focused on, the customer's process; her feelings before, during, and after the purchase. If you're a transactional brand, you should use advertising, pr and strategic media relationships to shine a light on brand you. But if you're a process brand, that light should be turned away from you to create a warm glow on where the value of your brand truly lies.
"Tom is timely, thought provoking and all about the new brand vision packaged as a Seinfeld stand up. I went to school on his ideas."
- Jeff Taylor, Founder, Monster.com and CEO, Eons.
(Rest assured, we will never provide your email address to anyone. Period.)
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