by Freddy J. Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango LLC + Incorrigible BACN Addict

I have few addictions, but I confess to loving me some bacon. I’ve tempered my addiction somewhat by subbing in turkey bacon, but that’s like seeking a buzz off light beer. It’s possible but hardly as satisfying.

Same thing goes for most e-newsletters. I think they’re going to be great, so I subscribe to a whole slew of them. Yet every morning the first thing I do when I check my email is delete almost every single one.

There’s a term for e-newsletters that we subscribe to but never read: “bacn” — which is a step above that other four-letter word, spam.

So what separates e-newsletters we read from bacn we don’t?

The good ones pull a Don Corleone and make us an offer we can’t refuse.

Take the following e-newsletter I just got from The Jared Company, a Blackberry application developer. I just bought my first Blackberry a few weeks ago, because I love being electronically leashed to my clients 24/7. And nowadays, no smartphone is complete without a load of apps on it. So I bought a few. Over the ensuing weeks, other app developers sent me updates and plugs for their other products, but JaredCo did something different: they made me like them.

The e-newsletter arrived with the subject heading, “Tether Your Blackberry: How To Guide.” And, yes, thank you, I would like to know how to hook my Blackberry up to my laptop to get Internet access. So in the midst of one of my early morning bacn purges, I actually stopped and clicked on one to find the following:

So what’s to like? First, there’s no phony attempt to address me by name — as 21st century consumers, we all know such “personalization” is computer generated. However, the newsletter is personal: written in the first person and first-person plural, while signed by an actual human being. Who’s Michael? No idea. His real name could be Akash Ramachandran for all it matters. But the point is that JaredCo knows it’s invading my e-mailbox, so it’s at least making a nod toward being personal. To top that off, Michael solicits feeback. Nice touch.

But all that social hocus-pocus would mean nothing if the newsletter didn’t have value, and this one does: a free PDF full of advice I want. Sure, it’s not a free iPad or chance to win a trip to the Bahamas, but it’s still useful. Better yet, there’s no commitment on my part — I don’t have to sign up for anything, enter a contest, or recommend a friend. I just click. And that click helps JaredCo measure the effectiveness of their campaign beyond a mere “open.” Yes, Michael, you got the attention of your customer and the desired action for your post-campaign analytics.

The PDF guide is also branded, with links back to the JaredCo site — nice integration. My only beef* is that the tethering guide was about PC’s, and I’m a Mac user. I guess they assumed most Apple fanboys have iPhones, but I’m one of those strange consumers who wants a phone with good reception. Go figure.

So after all that, I got left out. Sigh. But I was still impressed enough to blog about this bit of promotion. There’s nothing dazzling about it — this e-newsletter likely won’t hit the cover of AdAge or the pages of Mashable — it’s just smart marketing by a small company. Keep that up, and they’ll soon be a big company bringing home lots of the real good kind of bacon.

Update 7/15/10: I forwarded this blog post to Michael as an fyi, and within a few hours he sent me a link to a third-party article on how to tether my Mac. Nice. (And, yes, Michael is his real name.)

•••

Shameless plug: Want to create a corporate e-newsletter that doesn’t become bacn? Contact us…

*Sorry about all the meat references — it’s almost dinner.

I don’t usually share comic strips, but this one hit too close to home…

Coincidentally, Wired magazine just published a related (albeit much more scientific) article about how “The Web Shatters Focus, Rewires Brains.”

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango LLC + No Fan of Captain Ahab

image by McAuliflower, Brownie Points Blog (click image to see the full original)

How do you go from being one of the hottest restaurants in town to being completely out of business in just weeks? Simply follow the example of The Hump, a trendy sushi bar in Santa Monica, CA, that shut down after being busted for selling whale meat.

That’s right: someone there actually said, “Mmm, beautiful, intelligent and endangered species — let’s eat it.”

Two activists covertly filmed the staff of The Hump serving whale sushi. This happened in March 2010, and I’ve since been teaching it as a vivid example of how not to run a business — and why a complete stakeholders analysis is essential before launching any product or campaign.

In a stakeholders analysis, marketers evaluate their customers, competitors and own company. This helps shape strategy and gauge odds of success. Recently a fourth “C” — community — was added to factor in the relevance and influence of the government, labor unions, the news media and special interest groups. It’s the “C” that often gets left out of the equation, and it’s the “C” that factors most prominently in this case. Let’s dive in, shall we?

Customers: I’ve written several posts about customer worship in which I’ve noted that, yes, it’s essential to know your customers’ needs, but, no, you can’t afford to dismiss the following facts:

• customers don’t always know what they want
• customers disagree with each other
• customers are not always right
• certain customers can actually be bad for business.

The Hump perfectly met the needs of certain customers — the restaurant wouldn’t have offered whale sushi unless they had customers willing to pay hundreds of dollars for it. (Note: the activists who exposed The Hump weren’t customers — they were vegans on the prowl.)

Competitors: One principle of successful marketing is to be highly differentiated from your competition. And in this case, serving cetacean sushi certainly distanced The Hump from the thousands of other restaurants in the L.A. area (or so we whale lovers hope). Mission accomplished!

Company: Before doing anything, a company should know if it has the means and willpower to do so. Did The Hump have access to whale meat? Check. Were The Hump’s staff willing to serve it? Check. Was the chef willing and able to prepare it? Check. Indeed, in an earlier review, the L.A. Times wrote, “The chefs at The Hump are deadly serious about their sushi.” No kidding. So all systems go!

Community: And here’s where the happy whalers of The Hump met their Moby Dick. First of all, the restaurant was not located in some red state outpost where the residents regularly flip their fingers at environmentalists. This was Santa Monica — aka “Soviet Monica” — an extremely liberal city that’s home to the environmental group Heal the Bay and an office of the Natural Resources Defense Council. People here love whales — but not for dinner. Beyond residents, it was a collaborative effort between activists, federal agents and news-hungry reporters that served The Hump up on a plate.

In sum, The Hump adequately met the needs of customers, differentiated themselves from competitors, and leveraged the skills and motivation of company stakeholders. But after 12 years of business, they decided to neglect the interests and power of their community, and wound up sinking themselves.

Case — and doors — closed.

A too-late mea culpa from The Hump's website.

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango LLC & Business Lit Connoisseur

Note: The following is meant to be satirical. The author has no affiliation with the Harvard Business Review or any idea what its editors could possibly be thinking.

HBR: Gettin' in touch with a new generation of business readers.

For 88 years, the Harvard Business Review has been the authoritative voice of critical business thinkers, featuring such legendary thought leaders as Peter Drucker, Theordore Levitt and Michael Porter, and popularizing such paradigm-shattering concepts as the glass ceiling, marketing myopia and the balanced scorecard.

Well, enough of that…

We, the new generation of editors at Harvard Business Review, have concluded that critical, cutting-edge business thinking is, like, so 20th century. Who’s got the attention span for that anymore? Imagine today’s business titans taking time to read groundbreaking articles that require thinking… Could billionaire entrepreneur and Harvard alum Mark Zuckerberg adequately explore privacy loopholes if he were contemplating long-term sustainable competitive advantage? Would the words “long-term sustainable competitive advantage” even fit in a Facebook update?

Or consider the bankers of Goldman Sachs, many of them Harvard MBAs. What’s the purpose of having them learn about the impact of corporate social responsibility on brand equity if there’s no way to short it?

As the self-proclaimed social media gurus say — and we’re big followers of self-proclaimed social media gurus — what’s most important is doing what your customers want because, according to the gurus, customers know everything. Customers are never wrong. Customers can see the future and determine what’s best for the world at large. Our customers are primarily business leader wannabes, and from our extensive studies (using Twitter search), we learned that what our customers want most is pith. Great pith. Pith that can fit into 140 characters or less.

So, after much deliberation involving multiple case studies (cases of Sam Adams Boston Lager, to be exact), we the new generation of HBR editors have decided to punt the in-depth, statistically substantiated studies written by PhD’s and veteran business executives. Hey, don’t blame us — we tried publishing those, and a bunch of know-it-all bloggers complained that they were too hard to read. True, we could have edited those articles to make them readable, but that would have required reading them, and they’re too hard to read. Plus, what editor does editing these days?

Instead, we turned to specialists in addressing high school business 101 students and members of the Greater Wasilla Chamber of Commerce. We’re talking consultants, of course. You may have seen one of our recent posts, “Two Rules for a Successful Presentation,” which contained this earth-shattering insight: “know thy audience.” What pith! And note the cleverness of the word “thy,” which is the author’s way of acknowledging that this bit of wisdom is 2,000 years old, give or take a millennium.

In addition, we’re staying fresh with a new generation of business leaders — leaders raised on “Legally Blonde” and the lyrics of Justin Timberlake — by hiring columnists who speak their language. Consider the “Awesomeness Manifesto,” in which the author says innovation is dead, and that the only thing that matters is being “awesome.” See, no thinking required!

Along these lines, we’re publishing the following articles in coming issues:

• The Third Rule Of Public Speaking: Don’t Forget To Wear Pants
• Terrific Smelling Hair + Other Keys To Boardroom Success
• Today’s CEO: Bringing Sexy Back
• Effective Corporate Communication Is, Like, Whatever
• Money Lets You Buy Things
• and our favorite actual quote from the recent SXSW conference:
  We Spend Most Of Our Lives Living Among Other People

If you have any ideas for articles, please let us know on Twitter (@HarvardBiz), since, you know, we value customer input and don’t like to read anything longer than a tweet.

One final change: We, the new generation of HBR editors, realize that most of these articles aren’t really about business. Rather, they cover the kind of basic etiquette and concepts once taught on PBS children’s programming before all public broadcasting was sold to News Corp. Since authenticity is so du jour, we’ve decided to be totally authentic and rename our august publication the Harvard Obviousness Review, or HOR. Catchy, no? You’ll still find the name Harvard Business Review on our website and other media, since strategic rebranding is, like, the kind of smart practical advice we don’t do anymore.

Happy reading, dudes!

Related Articles:

• Enough With The Fluff! A Recession Is No Time For Management B.S.!
• Why I Won’t Get A PhD: Exhibit 1A
• The Young Professor: How To Get Published
• Marketing Mix-Up: Being Treated Like Lois Lane
• Ivory Towers Vs Empty Calories: The Best And Worst Of Business Publishing

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango LLC + Practicing Metaphor Engineer

OK, sometimes it's a bit of a stretch...

Looks like it’s over for us marketing strategists.

No, I’m not saying that there’s no more need for marketing strategy. If you look at the anemic brands of most banks, airlines and Web 2.0 startups, you’ll see that the need for marketing is growing faster than Rush Limbaugh at a cheesecake bake-off.

But the opportunity to develop a revolutionary new marketing strategy may have passed. Sure, we marketers can still develop new tactics based on new mediums and new markets, but the big picture strategies have apparently all been done. Even worse, they’re now being recycled…

This dawned on me while teaching competitive strategies in my integrated marketing course at UCLA Extension. Although I’m quoting different marketing experts and their theories, I found myself repeating the same ideas disguised as different metaphors.

For example, in the 1976 classic “Marketing Warfare,” Jack Trout & Al Ries recommended that “a good flanking move must be made into an uncontested area.” Nineteen years later, W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne recommended the exact same strategy, but opted for a nature metaphor with their “Blue Ocean Strategy.” A couple of years after that, Marty Neumeier in his book “Zag” tapped his design experience and recommended “look for the white space.” Three bestselling marketing books. Same basic idea. Different metaphors.

Then there’s the current reigning king of marketing metaphors, Seth Godin…

Godin’s a savvy marketer who’s cranked out an entire shelf of business bestsellers. His method? Devising wildly creative metaphors — sneezers, purple cows, meatball sundaes and big red fezzes — for basic marketing concepts. Three of his books extol the virtues of being “remarkable,” which is his way of saying “differentiation,” which is to marketing what “profit” is to financiers. Common sense stated in an uncommon way, resulting in millions of books sold. Godin is the Rachael Ray of business lit.

Since I found myself wading in metaphors before a score of marketing students, I decided to show them how they can contrive their own. I asked one student to pick an item, any object. He suggested a cheeseburger. (In these late night classes, food is always high on the mind.) And right there in class, the Cheeseburger POV (Proposition o’ Value) was born…

The Cheeseburger POV: The Exclusive Recipe…

Your basic American cheeseburger consists of a meat patty layered with cheese, an obligatory slice of lettuce, and a bun. And like a cheeseburger, a good value proposition is greater than the sum of its parts:

• The meat: This is the core product benefit, which is what the consumer primarily wants. In a car, that would be the drivetrain that takes them from point A to point B. But a drivetrain is not terribly exciting by itself, so…
• The cheese: You layer your core product with features like leather seats and a killer stereo and xenon headlights. The more cheese, the tastier the product, and the more you can skimp on the expensive meat.
• The lettuce: This is the token nod to nutrition that enables the consumer to say, hey, I’m eating healthy! In marketing, this is the corporate social responsibility element that’s the trend du jour. Think of the hybrid technology used to greenwash an SUV.
• The bun: Then there’s the styling, design and other fluffy branding elements that hold it all together.

Just apply this Cheeseburger POV, and you’ll have a product that satisfies the consumer and commands a tasty margin. (Ever see what a hybrid SUV costs?) If you crave even more profit, just ask your customer if they want “fries with that” (an extended warranty). The Cheeseburger POV can help you sketch out an idea for anything from an ecommerce site to a coffee shop to an MBA program.

Now it’s your turn to pull a Godin…

Anyone can coin a marketing metaphor — go ahead, give it a shot here. To help you get started, I’ve posted a list of suggested terms below. What do you think they represent?

Bacon Bits
Dodo Birds
Shrubbery
Tabernacle Choirs
Lederhosen
Duct Tape
Baba Ghanoush
Spackle

Just take one of those, apply it to some basic concepts from a marketing textbook, and expand it to 200 pages (large type, lots of leading). Voila! — you’ve got the basis of a business bestseller. Easy, right?

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to concoct my own hit book — and find a late-night burger joint.

Related Articles:

• The Young Professor: How To Get Published
• Marketing Mix-Up: Being Treated Like Lois Lane
• Not Exactly “Metafore!”: Politicians and Poetic License

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango LLC + former Record Industry Adman

Funny to see all the young ones chattin’ away on the Twitter ’bout this year’s South-by-Southwest festival, aka SXSW.

What used to be just a good ol’ fashioned music fest in the unvarnished heart of Austin is now this slicked-up multimedia shindig known as much — or even more — for its interactive media than its music. Seems to me that the latte-sippers are now outnumbering the Shiner Bock drinkers. The times they sure have a’changed…

Back in ’95, when I was but a pup in the music industry, I got me an assignment to write an ad for MCA Records’ big concert in the middle of the street where no one could miss it. (Helps to have that big corporate concert budget, you know.) Now this ad was gonna run in the Austin Statesman, which would be filled with other ads from other record companies for other concerts all pretty much lookin’ the same, like the opposite sex in a bar after you’ve had one too many.

So I decided to be a little different by making my ad a Texas legend. Hell, I had the space to write all I wanted. And just like many legends and textbooks in Texas, this one was just made up. But I enjoyed writin’ it. And from what I hear, people enjoyed readin’ it.

And you’ll notice way at the bottom a plug for MCA Records’ website, which in 1995 was a new-fangled thing I also wrote. So I kinda like to think that we at MCA (R.I.P.) helped to sow all this multimedia business at SXSW that today’s kids are now reapin’.

So if you got the time and the inkling, give this piece o’ history a click and a read, and pour me another Shiner. I get enough lattes here in L.A.

The good ol' days - click to enlarge...

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango LLC & Ink-Devouring Eco Junkie

I have a love-hate relationship with my Canon MP500 printer. Love because it prints out professional looking photos. Hate because its insatiable thirst for ink is robbing me dry, like NYPD cops in a perfume warehouse.

Indeed, according to one study, it would be significantly cheaper to refill my printer with Chanel No. 5.  And as the chart below notes, printer ink costs more than human blood, penicillin or vodka.

Source: Gizmodo

After burning through hundreds of dollars in ink, I now do most of my printing on a Dell laser printer — a move I should have made years ago — but I still use the Canon for photos and graphics. The other day while ordering some laser toner, I noticed something called Dell NextLife Ink. NextLife’s remanufactured cartridges supposedly last longer than regular cartridges and are more environmentally responsible. According to the Dell site, “if roughly 1% of the ink cartridges thrown into landfills every year were remanufactured by NextLife, the carbon savings over new cartridges would equate to planting almost 15,000 new trees.”

That’s a little convoluted, but OK, I’m a lifelong environmentalist, and I recycle my jokes regularly, so I was game for this. I’ve tried other off-brand ink cartridges made by child prison labor in China, and they just don’t work. Since this is Dell, and their laser printer has been problem-free so far, I decided to try their Canon-compatible cartridge.

The cartridge is smaller than a can of Altoids, so I expected it to arrive in a padded envelope. But as you can see in the following photo, it came in a 12″ x 9″ x 3″ box lined with foam. (The cartridge is the dark item wrapped in cellophane in the middle.)

EcoCat is not amused.

Inside was the cartridge’s own box and a Dell ad. Altogether, it wasn’t exactly Chernobyl, but it was still less eco-friendly than if I had driven alone in a Hummer at top speed to a Staples across town and bought a brand-new Canon cartridge along with a plastic store bag while drinking bottled water made from a genuine Antarctic glacier.

If this cartridge doesn’t work, maybe I’ll try blood next. It’s reportedly cheaper and less painful.

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango & “Bank Run” Consigliere

Full Disclosure: The following post is about one of my clients at Atomic Tango…

Imagine waking up and finding yourself strapped to a chair. Standing over you is a strange man swinging a large golf club. He keeps asking you menacing questions, but you have no idea what he’s talking about. Frustrated by your lack of answers, he decides to take a massive swing at a spot right between your eyes… How do you escape?

Well, there’s an App for that…

More exactly, there’s an iPhone App and an interactive movie. “Bank Run” is an Apple iPhone game with actual video footage — not CGI characters, but real humans in real locations. In addition, it’s integrated with a free interactive movie at BankRunGame.com.

In “Bank Run,” you play Evan, an office drone caught up in a conspiracy involving hot secret agents, crooked bankers and an army of armed thugs. You have to dodge cars and bullets while deciding whom to trust and whom to kill. Make the wrong choice or the wrong move and Evan eats it — but you can hone your skills and try again.

“Bank Run” is the creation of my client SilkTricky, a Portland, Oregon-based digital agency that launched its first live-action interactive film, “The Outbreak,” in September 2008. (Which I also helped promote.) “The Outbreak” featured rampaging zombies, bloodied characters and viewers in charge. Fueled by reviews on blogs and social media, “The Outbreak” attracted over one million views during its eight-month run online.

“The reaction to ‘The Outbreak’ inspired us to go even further,” said Chris Lund, SilkTricky’s founder and writer/editor/director/effects artist. “Bank Run” was filmed in Portland with local actors. Lund won’t reveal the budget, but noted that “it cost a little less than ‘Avatar.’” He added, “Our goal wasn’t to make a cinematic classic, but to create a fun fantasy experience. There are some cheesy one-liners and over-the-top scenarios, but who wants to play a boring movie?”

Just another day at the evil multinational bank...

SilkTricky is hosting the first part of “Bank Run” online where it can be sampled freely. The experience continues on the iPhone with a $1.99 App that includes the second half of the movie and a couple of arcade-style shooter games. Both the movie and the game contain graphic violence and adult language — or approximately what you’d find at your typical evil multinational bank. And like any bank loan officer, Lund hopes that interest runs high…

Update 3/15/10: “Bank Run” scores Site of the Day honors at the FWA.

Related Article: “The Outbreak”: New Zombie Flick Brings Interactive Films Back From The Dead

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango LLC & Social Entrepreneurship Instructor

Heart? Who needs a heart? I've got a great bottom line...

Some people just don’t get it.

I’m not talking about the willfully ignorant knuckle-draggers on the Texas State Board of Education. (They’re so beyond not getting it, they’ve gone full primordial.) I’m talking about the highly educated, wealth exuding finance execs who impersonated the Tin Man at a recent conference I attended…

The four of them — a VC, a banker, an angel investor, and an asset-based lender — explained how they help entrepreneurs finance their dreams. There was the usual spiel about due diligence, meticulous records, profitability, exit options, and their need as financiers to earn a significant ROI. Indeed, most of what they discussed centered on their needs and their business standards — with not a single word about worthy causes or making the world a better place.

So what — that’s business, right?

Except these financiers weren’t addressing just another meeting of profit-obsessed entrepreneurs. This was the Social Entrepreneurship Keynote Event 2010 held by the USC Marshall School of Business Alumni Association. Most of the 150 in attendance had paid to learn how they could make the world a better place through business — they wanted to change the world, not just count change.

Even the conference lunch had been provided by an all-nautral, organic, eco-conscious caterer, Paleta, which included a flyer stating that “we can enjoy the fruits of our planet while still preserving our resources for future generations. To this end, we have proudly built the first green kitchen in SoCal complete with our own greenhouse.”

Yet somehow, despite all the conference literature proclaiming “social entrepreneurship” — the printed program featured a cover illustration of hands cradling the globe and the words “corporate social responsibility” — the finance guys seemed to miss the point of the entire event.

Some Do Get It…

Just a few hours before these finance troopers took the stage, the high priestess of progressive media, Arianna Huffington, had regaled and inspired the audience to “reinvent capitalism.” She underscored her firm belief in private enterprise — that capitalism is the best system ever invented — then added that she doesn’t believe it exists in America, where the forces of the status quo and their lobbyists now dominate public policy and the markets. She then extolled Alfred Marshall’s “economic chivalry” and the value of empathy for the survival of both business and society. She concluded by inviting all attendees to blog for her new cause-oriented site Huffpost Impact.

The finance guys on stage must have completely missed Ms. Huffington — “Arianna who?” They also apparently missed conference honoree Adlai Wertman, a successful investment banker who later launched the nonprofit organization Chrysalis to employ the homeless, and who now heads the Society and Business Lab at USC. Professor Wertman defined social entrepreneurship as “the creation of new business models that manage multiple missions,” not just generating a profit.

But the way the financiers spoke of profit, you’d think it was spelled p-r-o-p-h-e-t.

And Their World Keeps on Spinning…

An audience member thanked the financiers for taking their time to share their insights — then asked what it all had to do with social entrepreneurship. The guys were caught completely off-guard, reminding me of Sarah Palin’s reaction when asked what newspapers and magazines she reads. Being seasoned executives, they entered spin mode. “We’re creating jobs,” one of them repeated several times, not mentioning whether those jobs were in the U.S., a Chinese sweatshop, or their own assistant ranks. Another twice said, “We don’t discriminate. We look at all business opportunities.” That made me wonder if he would invest in clearcutting the Amazon if the indigenous peoples would swap their trees for cigarettes and booze.

We’re talking business options here, comrade, not gender or race: you better discriminate.

Now, I’ll give the banker a break. He worked with the Small Business Administration and had to abide by their mandates, which stipulates only ventures that create jobs in America. Even so, I was hoping he’d at least offer lower interest rates to entrepreneurs hoping to do good in addition to doing well. Instead, his mantra was, “We have to get repaid.” I think I heard that line once on “The Sopranos.”

Fortunately, the crowd didn’t let ‘em get away with it. One articulate young women pressed them on the values issue, which they again dodged by mentioning “jobs” and “no discrimination.” Then, having brought the conference’s soaring spirit of benevolence and possibilities crashing back to earth, the tin men quickly made their getaway.

Reality Bites — in a Good Way…

In a sense, this was great. This stunning splash of business frigidity had reminded the collected entrepreneurs and students that the forces of greed were everywhere and nearly impossible to sway. The finance guys also helped dispel some of the naiveté that often rises from these “anything is possible if you set your mind to it” conferences. Reinventing capitalism is not going to be easy.

The indignation incited by the financiers also stirred the audience from their post-lunch lull. (If you can fire up a food-comatose crowd despite all the finance jargon you can throw at them, you know you’ve hit a nerve.) And that was great for me, because I was speaking next.

I was part of a three-person marketing panel. You could tell we were marketers because our presentation was irreverent, loud and the only one backed by a PowerPoint presentation. Tracy Williams, who runs the PR firm Olmstead Williams Communications, discussed the value of corporate social responsibility. Michael Miller, Director of Operations of CFO 911 Solutions, offered case studies in green marketing.

I decided to talk about critical needs and mistakes in social entrepreneurship:

• Marketing is not an afterthought: I meet too many entrepreneurs who tell me “they’re not ready to do marketing yet.” They have the common misconception that “marketing” means “advertising” when, in fact, marketing touches all aspects of their business, including the product, pricing, place of business, and — yes — commercial promotions. The truth is, if they’ve named their business, they’ve already done marketing. If they’ve decided where to locate their operations, they’ve done marketing. If they’ve had business cards printed, they’ve done marketing. However, if they did all those things without strategically considering their customers, competitors, community (of particular importance to a social entrepreneur) and their company brand, then they haven’t been doing it correctly. This could cause significant problems down the road — or even right out of the starting gates.

• Good intentions only go so far: There’s this idealistic notion that customers will beat a path to your door if you’re doing something good, whether it’s organic or fair trade or donating profits to charity. Unfortunately, customers often have other overriding needs. While they might want to do good and support great causes, sometimes what they really want is a low price. I cited a startup garment factory in L.A. that mistakenly believed it would generate endless business from “Made in the USA” enthusiasts, only to discover that, in business, patriotism often only goes so far as flag waving. In fact, some people will even have their flag made in China if they can get a good price for it. So I advised that factory owner to emphasize other benefits from being local: quick turnaround, lack of import hassles, and client ability to readily inspect their orders and the factory’s working conditions. In general, social entrepreneurs should certainly tout their values and missions, but they also need to put their customer benefits front and center.

• Too much too soon: In their well-intentioned zeal, some social entrepreneurs try to do too much before establishing their brand or their business model. I told the story of Nau clothing, which launched with every good intention and noble practice — including donating 5% of their sales to nonprofits. But Nau was on a crash course, and would have disappeared from existence had it not been bought out by a larger, more moderate company that tempered some of its benevolence. I then quoted the late great USC business professor James Stancill, who taught me that no matter what kind of business you run, the three most important keys to survival are cash flow, cash flow, cash flow. Referring to the earlier panel, I added that the finance gods often have to be fed first.

• Come together right now: I also emphasized the need to collaborate, particularly for ventures with small budgets and little brand recognition. Collaborating (as I discussed in an earlier post) helps organizations share costs, customers, brand equity and risk, while feeding more human needs, such as romance and beer (not necessarily in that order). I also mentioned that a for-profit venture might be better off partnering with a nonprofit rather than trying to duplicate its efforts. The nonprofit offers experience and expertise, which enables the entrepreneur to focus on the business.

• Make it personal: A social venture is an act of passion, and that should be reflected in the company brand. I pointed out that a brand isn’t a logo, that it’s the company’s visual image, personality and reputation rolled into one impression. A strong, differentiated brand helps prevent competitors from copying your every move and stealing your customers. I suggested that one of the best sources of differentiation is the person they see every morning in the mirror, and that they shouldn’t hesitate to put their passions and personalities into their businesses.

• Social media has costs: Finally, I picked on — I mean, picked up one of my favorite subjects, the overhyped offerings of social media. Many underfunded entrepreneurs understandably rely on free social media for all their self-promotion. While the likes of Twitter and Facebook and Flickr may be free and easy, they usually require a huge investment of time before delivering significant followings and business — and there’s no guarantee that they’ll ever deliver. Furthermore, while entrepreneurs are busy tweeting and friending, posting and following, they might miss out on real-world opportunities and connections, such as potential clients and investors at conferences. In the end, the entrepreneur might find that old-fashioned advertising would have been less costly and demanding.

So, yes, I also decided to splash a little reality on the proceedings — but for a worthy cause. I studied social entrepreneurship in business school and will be teaching it at Antioch L.A. because I also see social entrepreneurship as the primary source of positive change — and jobs — in our time. My objective is to help aspiring social entrepreneurs avoid common mistakes, ultimately fulfill their multiple missions, and triumphantly say “no thanks” to old-school capitalists who just don’t get it.

Related Articles:

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by Freddy J. Nager, Founder & Fusion Director of Atomic Tango LLC

What's even harder to believe is that this show is already 17 years old.

The hardest part to believe about “Superman” isn’t that a man can fly with no physical means of propulsion. It’s that Lois Lane, a reporter, can’t tell that Superman and Clark Kent are the same guy because of a pair of glasses. (Perhaps she needed a pair of her own.)

Lois’ lack of, um, vision is captured in an episode of the TV series “Lois & Clark,” wherein the time traveler Tempus gives her the low-down…

Tempus: Um, Lois, did you know that, in the future, you’re revered at the same level as Superman? Why there are books about you, statues, an interactive game. You’re even a breakfast cereal.
Lois: Really?
Tempus: Yes. But, as much as everybody loves you, there is one question that keeps coming up: “How dumb was she?” Here, I’ll show you what I mean. Look…
[puts glasses on]
Tempus: I’m Clark Kent.
[takes glasses off]
Tempus: No, I’m Superman.
[puts glasses on]
Tempus: Mild-mannered reporter.
[takes glasses off]
Tempus: Superhero. Hello! Duh! Clark Kent is Superman. Ha, ha, ha. Well, that was worth the whole trip. To actually meet the most galactically stupid woman who ever lived.

Apparently, some self-proclaimed marketing experts think most people are Lois Lane. They try to make us think they’ve come up with some spectacularly new idea by slapping a disguise onto an old one. But in place of glasses, they use words.

For example, last year Forrester Research recommended renaming brand managers “brand advocates” to reflect their new responsibilities in a digital age, proving without a doubt that Forrester should stick to research. As a friend of mine commented, “Really, Forrester? Rhetoric fixes things?” For the privilege of reading this piece of jargon slinging, Forrester will charge you only $499.

And that’s really the whole point of these rhetorical acrobatics: selling books and articles, not advancing the field of marketing.

From P’s to C’s…

One of the most popular targets of the disguise game is the 4P’s of the marketing mix: product, price, place and promotion. Established 50 years ago, the 4P’s are the fundamental elements of a marketing plan. They are to marketing what running, passing, blocking and kicking are to football offenses.

The fact that the 4P’s are well established makes them a tempting target for fame seekers, who proclaim that the 4P’s are passé or misguided, and then — ta-daa! — unveil their own perfect substitute. Forrester includes its own 4P’s substitute in that $499 article. After all, what better way to attract attention and sell overpriced studies than to announce that you’ve upended the foundation of an entire field?

One of my students recently directed my attention to another substitute, “the 4C’s of marketing”, in that virtual tome of infinite flawed knowledge, Wikipedia. Supposedly focused on customers, the 4C’s consists of customer, cost, convenience and communication. Let’s dissect this presumptuous impostor, one C at a time, shall we?

Customer

To include customers in the marketing mix is to grossly misunderstand what a marketing mix is. The marketing mix consists of everything you can DO or CREATE in a marketing plan. In other words, the tactics. The customer is the TARGET of all that.  Putting customers in the marketing mix is like putting fans in the football playbook. Completely nonsensical.

Customers are also just ONE target of a marketing plan. A marketer needs to additionally consider the competition, its own company stakeholders (executives, investors, employees), and members of the community (the media, regulators, interest groups, potential collaborators). These are the 4C’s I teach — customers, competitors, company, and community — as a “Stakeholders Analysis” to help craft a smart marketing mix. It’s not a substitute.

Third, including customers in the marketing mix condescendingly implies that other marketers have never considered customers when crafting their plans. That’s not a C; that’s a bunch of B with a mighty big S.

Finally, by leaving product out of the equation, the 4C’s also leaves out packaging, ambiance, quality and all the other attributes that make a certain product or service attractive. Shall we tell Apple to ignore product innovation and design and just focus on meeting customer needs? That’s not only bad marketing, that’s bad business.

Next!

Cost

Instead of just the sticker price of the product, “cost” includes all the expenses incurred by the customer to acquire and own the product. That sounds considerate, but there are three problems with that.

First, different customers have different costs. For example, I live within walking distance of three supermarkets, so it costs me nothing in gasoline to buy my groceries. Somebody up in the Hollywood Hills has to drive each and every time. And what if one guy drives his hybrid to the market and the other takes his Hummer? How can you actually determine all those costs for all your customers? That could result in paralysis by analysis, and not lead to any solutions.

Second, certain acquisition costs are already factored into price, such as shipping-and-handling. “Cost” is not a substitute for “price” — it’s just a matter of depth and degree. How far do you want to take it? And if your product is virtually identical to your competitor’s product, and they’re both for sale in the same store (think bottled water), then acquisition and maintenance costs are not an issue — but price may be.

Third, there are many brilliant and complicated pricing strategies, from two-part tariffs to reference pricing to freemiums. To ignore those by focusing on costs is to leave half of your marketing tools at home.

Convenience

In the 4P’s, “place” refers to all the distribution tactics that you can implement. In other words, how do you get the product to the customer? “Convenience” asks you to consider how easy it is for the customer to get the product. That’s nothing new or innovative; that’s just isolating one attribute and declaring it a substitute. I’ve yet to encounter a company that doesn’t consider access issues for their customers. That’s just basic distribution planning — as it has been since the first farmers brought their goods to the central bazaar.

In addition, “convenience” is not the only aspect of distribution that customers care about. The image of the distribution outlet also matters. A luxury product will take a huge hit to its brand if it’s for sale at Walmart. Indeed, some customers won’t even set foot in a Walmart for any reason.

Other places offer unique advantages. Red Bull, for example, initially sold its energy drink in bars because that’s where customers are used to paying high prices for funny tasting beverages; because bars can make a glorified soft drink seem edgy, adult and sophisticated; because bars inspire experimentation and conversation; and because bars let you observe your customers consuming the product on the spot.

Place isn’t just about convenience. Indeed, in the case of Red Bull, the company initially made their product hard to get to increase its mystique and desirability.

Communication

Supposedly, “communication” is superior to promotion because it includes two-way conversations. This ignores the fact that promotion has always included two-way conversations as options, such as in-store demos or door-to-door proselytizing or telemarketing. Last I checked, telemarketing is not exactly a well-loved tactic.

Promotion also already incorporates social media and other wonders of communication, so why rename the category?

Third, using the term “communication” ignores that fact that not all customers want conversations or any kind of relationship with a company — many just want to buy their stuff and to be left alone.

Finally, there are effective promotional tactics that do not involve any two-way communications, such as public relations or SEO/SEM. To focus just on interactive promotions is to, again, leave half your tools at home.

Overall, this 4C’s is simply a variation of the 4P’s with an emphasis on some tactics over others — in other words, marketing planning as usual. Its most serious flaw is to list “customers” as a tactic, when they’re part of the overall consideration set. 4C’s? Meet deep six.

Mmmm, Conflict…

Over the years, I’ve seen other variations of the marketing mix, all guilty of misunderstanding, contrivance or incompleteness. There’s a reason the 4P’s have survived for 50 years: they cover all the bases, they’re logical, and their very simplicity is what makes them work.

Now we marketers love to disagree. After all, differentiation is what we do for a living. Just ask all the marketers you meet to define “marketing” or “brand,” and you won’t find two who agree.

I for one relish a good marketing debate. Some killer insights and creative strategies can evolve from a smart discussion. But when the disagreements center on simply twisting words around, then call me anti-semantic, but I won’t play along. Believing that mere wordplay is revolutionary would just be galactically stupid.

Related Article: “A Side Order of Spaghetti: Why Listening to Customers is Nothing New — or even Necessary.”