Tom Asacker

Nietzsche on branding (I mean . . . insanity)

"In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule."

Just in case you think I'm making up the branding nonsense I'm trying to debunk, please read this. It's real and absurd: click here.

Bob Dylan on the times

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

As I sit hear digging through hundreds of emails built up over the past six days, a few business items really jumped out at me. (Note: My trip to Germany was wonderful. My experience with Continental was NOT):

Tuning In to the New Marketplace Realities

Amid growing skepticism about the effectiveness of traditional media advertising, a committee from three important industry organizations is pushing a new way to measure how consumers interact with ads. A joint-task force composed of members of the Association of National Advertisers, American Association of Advertising Agencies and the Advertising Research Foundation yesterday unveiled an initiative that would shake up the classic equation of advertising math that determines consumer exposure to an ad. It would replace the concept of frequency -- the number of exposures to an ad -- with "engagement," a metric that could better reflect the growing number of media choices facing consumers, from cell phones and the Internet to video games and podcasts.

Perhaps Not

Advertising Week, an organization that aims to improve the image of the advertising business, has promoted itself with an ad deemed so “sexist,” “moronic” and “tired” that many felt it actually tarnished the industry’s reputation. For the full story, click here.

The Competitive High Bar is Very High Indeed

The new head of Volkswagen AG's core brand said in an interview published Friday that the struggling automaker's employees must be "ready to tread new paths."  Wolfgang Bernhard told the company's in-house magazine, Autogramm, that "if we carry on as we have so far, we won't make it."

Even Traditional Media is Getting It

BusinessWeek has jumped on the creativity, innovation and design in business bandwagon in its latest issue. And as a side note, just weeks after John A. Byrne, editor at Fast Company, helped save his magazine by recruiting Joe Mansueto to buy it, Mr. Byrne is leaving to become executive editor at BusinessWeek.

The times they certainly are a changin'. My only question is, what in the world is taking everyone so long to change with them?

Peter Nivio Zarlenga on Wow!

"Like when I'm in the bathroom looking at my toilet paper, I'm like 'Wow! That's toilet paper?' I don't know if we appreciate how much we have."

I'm pretty sure that we don't appreciate how much we have. And I'm certain that we're not satisfied with it all. We want more, better, faster, cheaper, truer, funnier, groovier, kinder, prettier, wittier, livelier.  Expectations are at an all-time high, and they're headed nowhere but up!

The Death of Wow!

And because of these rising expectations and the explosion in entrepreneurial endeavors, I herein predict the end of Wow! as we have come to know it. What "Wow!" am I referring to? This kind from Tom Peters, the prince of Wow!:

“I hate ‘exceeds customer expectations.’ Promise never to use it. ‘Exceeds expectations’ is the most pitiful pair of words uttered in the English language. Our aspirations are too low. The LA Times said of Frank Gehry the architect’s latest concert hall that it is ‘a powerful and madly exuberant work.’ Now, THAT’s the kind of thing you should be aiming for in your customer service! Aim to put a shiver up your customers’ spines. That’s what you should be trying to do with your call centers even. It’s about attitude.”

I love having my spine tingled as much as the next guy, but c'mon. Spine tingling call centers? Pah-lease. Now don't get me wrong, I love Tom Peters as much as the next rabble-rouser. But that kind of post-sale Wow! is pure hyperbole. To Wow! someone with a call center interaction after they've made the decision to do business with you implies only one thing:

The quality of their experience with you before their decision to engage with you was, at best, average. And thus, their expectations weren't very high to begin with. Right?

The Shifting of Wow!

I was perusing my July issue of BtoB magazine this past weekend, and I almost choked on my beer when I read this line in the Chasers column:

"A company's advertising represents the best opportunity it has to portray its personality."

After I cleared my throat and wiped my chin I began to consider those words - and my reaction to them - a little more critically. "Perhaps that's right," I thought. "Maybe we've reached a a point where the quality of the initial point of customer contact - be it an advertisement, sales presentation, webinar, direct mail piece, blog, concert hall, etc. - is the new competitive high bar? Maybe what we're experiencing today is the shifting of Wow! emphasis from post-sale to pre-sale? From customers to prospects?"

Today, when prospects experience any form of marketing communication, they're searching (albeit subconsciously) for two things: relevance and uniqueness. They're unimpressed with "me too" offerings and they see right through the old school, mass marketing b.s. and bribes. Even "new" doesn't mean jack to them. They're "newed" out. So they tune-out most attempts to pull them in for a later Wow! Instead, they must be strategically Wowed!, starting with the very first impression.

People are looking for meaning and life enrichment, and they're looking for it in your company's essence. But it's the personality that draws them in and entices them to dig deeper. It's the look and feel of the package. The attitude of the direct mail piece. The design of the website. The intelligence, empathy and confidence of the salesperson.

It's All Transactional Now

In his new book, Don't Just Relate - Advocate: A Blueprint for Profit in the Era of Customer Power, Professor Glen Urban implores marketers:

"Do not build expectations unless you can meet them. Trust is difficult to earn and easy to lose."

Today's marketplace demands constant innovation for the benefit of the customer. We expect it: "What have you done for me lately?" It also requires an endless flow of creative communication. We desire it: "Is it stimulating? Is it fun? 'Cause Heaven knows I could use a little fun." You can forget about "retaining customers," because they were never yours to hold onto in the first place. Start working on continuously attracting them. 

Wow! the World

Leonardo Da Vinci once wrote:

"Once you've flown, you will walk the Earth with your eyes turned skyward; for there you have been, there you long to return."

The landscape has changed. The bar has been permanently raised. Fosbury flop? Old school. Think outside the box? Cliche. Wow the customer? Ditto! From here on out, it's Wow! the world.

P.S. I'm off to Europe to give a branding thinkshop this week. I won't miss the oppressive heat and humidity, but I will certainly miss you.

Jane Russell on publicity

"Publicity can be terrible. But only if you don't have any."

My sentiments are more in line with Einstein's: "Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury - to me these have always been contemptible. I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for every one, best both for the body and the mind."

So it is with some trepidation that I direct you to a blog promotion of my new book. The good news is that it was initiated by my choice of the most creative business blog on the web: Brand Autopsy. John Moore works harder than any one I'm aware of at packaging "need to know" concepts in new and accessible ways. The bad news is that he refers to me in an offhanded way as a "hawker."  :-)  Hey . . . c'est la blogging. N'est pas? Check it out: click here.

Nathaniel Hawthorne on comfort

"The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines itself within ancient limits."

I often feel like this. Do you?

There's a race of men that don't fit in,
A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don't know how to rest.
If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.

Robert W. Service, The Men That Don't Fit In

Robert Louis Stevenson on selling

"I find it useful to remember, everyone lives by selling something."

This just in: Media buyers feel that half of all sales reps are ignorant and pestiferous.

MediaLife's media buyer survey quantified what most already suspected: media buyers think that about only half of media reps know what the heck they're doing. A significant minority of the buyers - about one in six - have such a low opinion of reps that they said only ten or twenty percent are useful. Complaints centered, unsurprisingly, on time wasting, both in the form of over contacting and proving ill-prepared when conversations do take place. Another big complaint proved to be overly hard selling, with some reps seeming to believe that repetition or browbeating may succeed in getting a property on the buy where the numbers won't.

Perhaps sales reps should read this latest McKinsey article on better B2B selling: click here.

Or this one by yours truly: click here.

Cicero on escape from disease

"Although physicians frequently know their patients will die of a given disease, they never tell them so. To warn of an evil is justified only if, along with the warning, there is a way of escape."

Maybe that's it! Perhaps they don't know the way of escape, so they continue to prescribe the placebo ($264.5 billion in the U.S. last year). The doctor keeps the client (and the billings). The client feels better. What's so wrong with that?

The American Association of Advertising Agencies has an ongoing initiative called Value of Advertising and Advertising Agencies. Here's an excerpt from their web site (emphasis mine):

The AAAA's Value of Advertising initiative is an ongoing, multifaceted effort designed to educate American marketers about the major, unique and essential role media advertising plays in creating, maintaining or restoring the economic value of the brand franchise.

The project sets out to convince marketers that diminishing the quantity and/or quality of advertising diminishes the value of the brand, and that the creative employment of media advertising is the only long-term means of achieving and retaining market dominance.

The Value of Advertising initiative currently includes a series of publications and videotapes.

What? No media advertising? Hey doctor. Heal thyself.

And for those of you who think I'm simply bashing with no prescription, listen to my first podcast where I rant my prescription for creating a strong radio brand: click here.