Marketing Chow

New Site at Martin Research. Come join me!

2010-12-17T17:50:19-05:00

I am going to pick up the pace of the blogs in 2011, and move everything over to my company website:

Please join me there for commentary on the worlds of marketing and marketing research! Please consider subscribing, as well as linking to me on Facebook if you have not already. Thanks so much for taking the time to read, and best wishes to you all.

Frank

Advertising Evolves

2010-09-13T16:05:04-04:00

And so should marketing and marketing research! Take a look at these ads and consider the uproar that would ensue were they to air today!

Sure these are extreme examples, but many companies seem to be SO out of touch with their markets. Have you seen the (domestic) advertising focused upon men lately? They are formulaic and insulting...

Beer ads are particularly guilty of this - sure this is cute. But does it reflect an understanding of its audience?I sure hope not.

Blogs You Should Read

2010-09-03T10:34:56-04:00

Valeria Maltoni is Italian and beautiful, but that should not distract you from the outstanding quality of her thinking on marketing, social media, strategy and a host of other topics that most of us have time only to pay scant attention to. If there are a couple of blogs that you regularly read in the field of marketing, Conversation Agent should be one. In this particular blog, inspired by Chris Guillebeau, she picked up on one of his favorite topics -rule-breaking - and this is the sort of thing that ALL marketers should read on a regular basis.

And if you get a second or minute or hour, take a look at Chris's site, especially on the subject of non-conformity. He's a young dude, but is a compelling writer and story-teller.

Listening...

2010-09-02T11:25:58-04:00

Excellent article in Ad Age Digital on what some companies are doing to keep track of what is being said about them in the digital world.

It used to be so much easier; companies did focus groups and/or telephone surveys and remained blissfully ignorant of feedback that was not directly solicited in sort sort of formal research methodology.

As with research, the key to success is NOT just knowing what people are saying - but how you react to it:

How does your company respond? Do you get involved in the conversation? Contact participants directly? Thank them for their feedback and recommendations?
Do you aggregate the information? Share it with the executive team?
Does the data inform your strategic and tactical decisions?
Have you developed metrics for measurement?

And as with other listening - just as important is what is NOT being said. What messages are not getting across, or are irrelevant to customers and prospects? What do you WANT them to talk about, but they are not?

And the traditional methods of research? Are they outdated now? Can we finally forget about focus groups?

No way. These new methods can enhance, but not replace, the more formal methods of research in which you solicit feedback from customer and prospect groups on topics of specific interest.

It's kind of like dating. You can ask what your date thinks of you and watch the response very carefully, but wouldn't you love to be able to eavesdrop what she says to her friends when you aren't around? And what would you do if you could have access to that conversation? Probe for clarity - ask more questions - and attempt to better understand. That is, if you care about what she thinks and want the relationship to develop.

These new tools are too superficial to help users develop any real, in-depth understanding, but they can certainly help inform the questions.

So what are YOU and your company doing to listen to what is being said about you in the cyber world?

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Frequent Buyer Rewards

2010-09-01T19:10:39-04:00

All businesses could use customers like Sam. What do you do to make yours feel special?

Blog posted here.

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The Ultimate Question

2010-09-01T12:11:13-04:00

I LOVE questions. As a marketing researcher, the value I bring to clients is to help them figure out what
makes customers tick - what makes customers happy, and what makes them buy more of the clients products and services.

What does NOT make customers happy? Long, boring and repetitive customer satisfaction surveys.

I have been guilty, and have seen other researchers be similarly blameworthy, of asking WAY too many questions in the typical customer survey. I have seen customer satisfaction surveys stretched to over 100 questions, which can tax the goodwill and satisfaction of even the most rapturous customers.

It hit home again with me the other day when I re-read one of my favorite research books, The Ultimate Question, by Fred Reichheld. In this excellent book, Mr. Reichheld boils the customer satisfaction issue down to one ultimate question:

"How likely is it that you would recommend this company to a friend or colleague?" He uses a ten point scale, and divides the reponses as follows:

"9" and "10" Scores are "Promoters"
"7" and "8" scores are "Passives"
"6" or less are "Detractors"

(NPS) Net Promoter Score = Promoters - Detractors

This could not be more simple. There typically are some follow-up questions, but the net result is a quicker survey that provides outstanding and actionable research data.

I have implemented this survey for several clients, and found that respondents react very well to the simplicity, and spend less time exasperated by a convoluted line of inquiry. And for the report of findings, there is even a neat web site that provides net promoter scores for various organizations ranging from airlines to fast food, which lets you see how you stack up compared with other businesses. Clients like it because they are not overwhelmed with reams of survey data. Follow up, concrete action and score improvements are straightforward and easy for employees to understand.

In research, simple and short are ALWAYS better.

Check out The Ultimate Question here.

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Our Legacy

2009-06-29T15:21:07-04:00

We lost three celebrities last week in Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson, but none of those hit me as hard as the death of someone I had never even heard of.

My friend Gradon Tripp tweeted the death of Meg Porter, known on Twitter as Megapixel.

I did not know Meg, and did not even follow her on Twitter. But Grady was one of my first Twitter friends, and I went to Meg's page to take a a look.

Meg was 24. She had close to 3000 followers on Twitter, was funny, thoughtful and liked to call people "doll". She loved tiramisu and dirty martinis. Go to her blog, and in the top post she eerily tells her readers though she has been away, she is "still alive". Meg did some video blogging, which show a beautiful young girl who had an easy, flirtatious way with the camera. She even sang to a special friend. No doubt, she will be missed with a gut-wrenching misery by those who love her.

This made me consider, in a way that I had not before, about the legacy we leave with our tweets, blogs and SM work. If I died tomorrow, what would people see on my twitter page? On my blog? What would people conclude is important to me? Would they be able to see how much I love my children, my amazing wife, and my very bad dogs? Would I look like a ridiculous curmudgeon, grousing about unimportant inconveniences, marketing charlatans, or about clients who think they know a lot more than they actually do? Or would I look thankful to have had a fun career trying to figure out why people buy stuff?

Would people see snark and negativity? Or helpfulness and playful banter?

Would they think that I actually added to the conversation on marketing? That I tried to make people better at what they do? Or that I just took up cyberspace with poorly articulated opinions that betrayed clumsy, clunky thought?

I guess it's worth considering what we do here: the legacy we are going to leave on Twitter and our blogs. From this point on, I'm not going to tweet or write anything I would not want my children to read.

And I love you, Pam.

What about you? If you died tomorrow, what would people conclude about you, based on what you typed in 140 characters or less?

Moderator, Mediator

2009-06-24T15:40:07-04:00

Warning: The rant you are about to read will be accompanied by the grating sound of axes being ground.

I received a call from a friend and sometime client, a very savvy, creative advertising dude who runs an agency renowned for good, solid work. He wanted to hire us to help with some focus groups, which we do all the time, not just for him but for agencies all over the USA.

This time though, he just wanted us to provide only the room with the one-way mirror and recruit the participants. You see, one of his colleagues will be doing the "mediation".

Huh? Are they inviting estranged husbands and wives? Warring business factions? Ahmadinijad and Mousavi?

What he meant was "moderation" - what moderators do. In focus groups.

This sort of thing drives me crazy. Admittedly, moderating focus groups is not as dangerous as harvesting nitroglycerin, but this excellent agency is going to sell a service to its client for which it has no training and scant experience. The Agency's President and CEO does not even know what the leader of the discussion is called. Hell, even E-How rated the task as "moderately difficult".

The best case result will be that no harm is done, and the participants engage in discussion that is moderately helpful for the initiation of the advertising campaign.

What is more likely is that the untrained moderator will miss opportunities to probe into rich and profitable areas of insight - areas that could jump-start the agency creatives by making them focus upon what is relevant and real and rock-solid. This represents massive opportunity costs that dramatically exceed the cost of hiring an experienced moderator. Why do these parsimonious people NOT get that? Sure, it's immediately penny-wise.

But long-term? Exceedingly pound-foolish. If they only knew what it was costing them.

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It's Time

2009-03-31T08:55:57-04:00

It's time to stop freaking out about stuff we cannot control, and assert control of the things that we can.

It's time to STOP worrying about whether the stock market is up, down, flat or frenetic, and start worrying about our own personal stock. Are we getting better? Is our index rising? Are the people who have a stake in us getting an excellent return on their investment?

It's time to let go of fear and despair, and watch them melt away as the dew before the blazing new day's sun. We are in control of our own destiny and will not yield that control to a capricious fate. Bring it, bitch.

It's time to stop being pissed about AIG bonuses, banking bouhahas, financial folderol, auto bailouts or the declining dollar. It's time to learn something new, payoff debt and begin to pay ourselves first. It's time to take responsibility for securing our own future, and let everyone else worry about whether the government will secure theirs.

It's time to stop watching the endless parade of misery in the news and worrying it will hit us. If you're fearful, it already has. Anytime you start to feel depressed, click this. And this. You'll feel SO much better, I promise.

It's time to stop fretting about newspapers and embrace the new technology. It's here to stay.

It's time to let George Bush go. He's out. Focus on the future. It's time to remember again how good we felt watching the President of the United States dance on his inauguration day.

It's time to spend money on marketing again. Of course, the best time to market your goods and services are when the other voices are quiet - too scared to spend. Now is the time to GRAB some market share from the competitors who have circled the wagons and are not moving forward. DO it!

It's time to understand that people want engagement and they want community. How are we in marketing going to provide that for them? Hint: not in traditional broadcast media.

It's time to stop worrying about old media, and understand that the ways we capture attention and motivate buyers has changed FOREVER. And you know what? It will change again. Try to be on the front end of the curve next time.

It's time to look for new business opportunities - to take a risk. Seriously, what have we to lose?

It's time to start controlling how we spend our own freakin' time. It's time to share our talents and love with others. Passion shared gives unimaginable returns. (Tax-free!)

It's time to appreciate our blessings and to take the opportunity to be a blessing to someone else.

What do you think? What ELSE is it time for?

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2 Lessons from 2 of the Best

2009-03-10T18:36:26-04:00

I have been overwhelmed with focus groups recently, but have been keeping up with my reading. Here are a couple of excellent, short reads that are well worth the time spent.

Fantastic marketing lesson from Chris Brogan. (Disclosure: if you don't read Brogan, start)

Web Site lesson from David Poteet, CEO of New City Media (Disclosure: my gorgeous wife works for NCM)

Enjoy!

Super Bowl Marketing

2009-02-01T17:24:01-05:00

Everyone who loves advertising and marketing has GOT to love the Super Bowl. The advertisements are always as much fun as the game, and frequently much more creative and entertaining.

The problem becomes: WHEN do you make a refrigerator run?

If you missed any of the ads, never fear. ADAge has provided a link to all of the ads for the game, so we marketing junkies can go back and review the ones we liked the best and laugh at the ones that were ridiculous wastes of $3 Million.

Questions to ponder:

1)The spots cost $3 mil. Was it worth it?

2) Does the spot look as though ANY research was done to support it? Does it look as though the advertiser has a fair understanding of their customers?

3) Did the ad accomplish anything OTHER than to be fun and entertaining?

4) Who do you think was the ad's target market?

5) Think of the ads you liked best - are they going to make you DO anything differently? Think a different way?

Or you could just forget all that and enjoy the commercials. Many of us in marketing WAY overthink these things sometimes anyway!

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Jumpstart Your Marketing for 2009

2009-01-05T10:22:04-05:00

Here are three things you can do right now to jump start your marketing for 2009:

1. Pick FIVE of your best customers: Call all of them, thank them for their business and ask three questions:

a. Thinking of your overall experience with our company, how would you rate our relationship using a scale of 1 - 10, with ten being the highest?

b. (If any score less than 10) What do we need to do to make it a 10?

c. If you were to make one recommendation to us that would make your experience with your company better in 2009, what would the recommendation be?

I can't emphasize enough the importance of follow-up. Send a hand-written and addressed thank you note. AND, call these customers back in one month and tell them what you have done as a result of their recommendations.Thank them again.

2. Set 2 goals for your email marketing strategy:

a. To DOUBLE your email list by July 1, 2009.

b. To stop selling in every email. Instead, deliver value. Value as defined by your customers.

Accomplishing (b) will make it MUCH easier for (a) to happen, believe me!

3. Pick three to six employees who are experienced, motivated and connected in the market: people who talk to customers and prospects every day. Get together bi-weekly to discuss and brainstorm three themes:

a. What are our customers saying about us?

b. What are our customers and prospects saying about our competition?

c. What can we do to help everyone in the company develop their marketing ethos. To develop their passion for marketing, for connecting.

Remember - marketing is all about the delivering of value, and you have to have a clear understanding of that value as defined by people who buy from you. And since the competitive environment changes all the time, you have to be asking all the time!

To all of my readers, thank you. Have a AMAZING 2009!

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12 Marketing Resolutions for 2009

2008-12-30T16:26:54-05:00

What are you going to do differently in 2009? If you don't have a plan for standing out from the crowd of people who take money for the same stuff that you do, you had better put one together. Too much of the time, marketing is one of those things that people are too quick to create and too quick to cancel as dictated by the vicissitudes of the competitive environment or the market - which is why so much marketing is ineffective and wasted.

In many organizations, marketing budgets are constrained now, which every student of marketing knows is exactly the wrong thing to do in a downturn. Unfortunately, we don't have too many students of marketing inhabiting the executive suites, and it's more important for them to have a good quarter than it is for them to adhere to any long range marketing plan.

So here are some marketing resolutions than ANY organization can set up to do a better job of connecting with customers and prospects in 2009. And the really cool thing is that if you do these things, you'll find yourself making better, more informed marketing decisions - ones that will have a much better chance of inducing customers give their money to YOU rather than the competition.

1) Look at your marketing plan. If it is basically the same plan you had three years ago with 95% of it being broadcast ads in print and electronic media, walk to your highest floor, open a window, and throw the marketing plan out. (Or be environmentally responsible and shred it and put it in the recycling bin.) Start over again with something that reflects at least a little thought about the way the Internet has affected the way people who want to buy stuff collect information.

2) LISTEN. Spend time every week talking to customers, either formally in focus groups or informally on the phone, and for God's sake listen to what they have to say and learn from it. Ask them what they like about your products, and what they like about the competitor's. Ask them what they wish your stuff could do and how that would improve their lives.

2) LISTEN MORE. Regularly talk to employees who talk to customers every day. Find out what is frustrating the customers and what customers are asking for. Ask what action the employees would take if they could do anything to improve the customer experience. Then let them DO it.

3) Spend time talking and listening to people who don't buy your stuff, but instead give their money to your competitors. Find out what your competition is doing better than you and do something about it. Find out what you have to do to stand out even more from competition.

4) Update your web site. It should be SO much more than an electronic brochure or an expensive way to collect email addresses. Great web sites are interactive, entertaining, showcase satisfied customers and add real value to those who will peruse it. Pay particular attention to your landing page. It HAS to be good or people will never make it to the rest of your site (like maybe the "contact me" page). Look into hiring an SEO strategist. If you don't know what SEO is, definitely hire one.

5) Develop an email marketing strategy, with the purpose of the email being not to sell stuff all the time, but to add real value to everyone who takes the time to read it. Make the content good enough and interesting enough and informative enough that customers will want to forward it to their friends.

6) Update your blog. Forget any impulse to broadcast how great you and your company are and create posts that add value to your customers and prospects. Make the conversation two-way rather than a monologue. And don't delete the negative comments - address them in public. Read Mack Collier's blog check-up series, and do what he says those companies should do.

7) Get involved in Social Media, other than looking for hookups on Facebook and connections on LinkedIn. Join Twitter and listen. The world is talking out there, whether you are listening or not, and the smart companies are beginning to understand how having a *real* presence online can improve their image and increase their customer satisfaction. Subscribe to and read Chris Brogan and Amber Naslund and Valeria Maltoni and Geoff Livingston and think about how this year is going to be different from any your organization has ever seen before.

8) HEAR what your buzz is. Make good buzz. Pick one or two or five people in your organization and ask them to read every blog associated with your company, your business, and comment where appropriate. Ask them to set up Google Alerts and Tweet Scans and respond to every single instance your company is mentioned - either with a "thank you" or an offer of help. Follow up.

9) Set up a groups of connected and dedicated employees who will meet once a week to a) share what they are hearing, b) share what they are doing, c) brainstorm future actions in the arena, and d) discuss new opportunities as they arise. Look for ways to be different.

10) Resolve to BE the voice of the customer in your organization, especially if that voice is something management needs to hear but doesn't necessarily want to. Be a gadfly.

11) Video tape customers (ask first!) using your products or shopping in your stores. Bring the tapes back to HQ and have an internal focus group on what you observe. Look for ways you can improve the overall experience or life of the wonderful people who keep you busy and in business.

12) If you DO these things, you will make better marketing decisions in 2009. So don't be afraid to track and measure your results the results! Count. Track. Measure. Modify. Repeat.

What ELSE can you do to better connect with and market to the people who buy your stuff in 2009? I want your thoughts and ideas!

And Happy New Year!

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Listening Ears Photo Credit

The Power of Touch

2008-12-12T11:18:55-05:00

Jeff Oster sent me an email last night to say "thanks" for the mention in yesterday's blogpost. I have been a devoted fan since I discovered "Released" in 2005, and getting an email from Jeff was enormously uplifting - and completely unexpected.

And therein lies its power. It's in doing the unexpected that we distinguish ourselves from all the others competing for time and attention and money.

Aside from being an enormously talented musician, Jeff is also a shrewd marketer. He obviously has his name set up in Google Alerts, and takes the time to reply to fans and people who love his music. And what effect do you think this will have on people who love his music already?

Right. It turns mere fans into passionate evangelists.

The tag line of his email said "As You Listen, Imagine..."

So as you listen to this, close your eyes and imagine ways you can build your business by doing the unexpected - by touching people in a personal and meaningful way - maybe even just by saying "thank you".

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7 Things You Don't Know About Me

2008-12-11T16:23:43-05:00

And may wish you didn't!

My good friend Amber Naslund tagged me to write Seven Things that are interesting or different about me, and because I love her I am going to play. I guess if you're reading my blogs, some of the insights provided today will do one of two things: 1) it will make you like me more, because it will show a personal side, or 2) will confirm beyond doubt that I am way too whack to make a career in marketing. No wait, that makes it easier, doesn't it. Cool, let's roll. These are presented in no particular order.

1) I cry like a baby at Dog Movies. It started with Lassie and Old Yeller, and reached critical mass at "Where the Red Fern Grows". I have a Yellow Lab, Willie, who is Exalted Among Dogs, and whom I adore beyond reason, so there is no freakin' way I'm going to see Marley and Me. The posters and trailer make me sniffle like a spanked child. NO way.

2) I played on a state championship football team when I was in high school. I love watching football, but HATED playing it, and was not very good. BUT, the reason I played was because it was the only way I could lift weights with the team, and I loved the workouts. So, yes, I would get my ass stomped at practice every day by State Champion Football Players, just for the privilege of hoisting metal later. How f'ed up is that? I still have bad dreams that for some reason, I've decided to play football again, and practice is about to start. (Shudder)

3) I am married to a woman that is profoundly amazing in her grace and wisdom and beauty and humor, and everyday I count myself among the blessed. Of course, all of you who have met Pam know this already, but did you know she basically dresses me? I have zero sense of style, and for years thought that khakis and a button down were high fashion. Then I saw Steve Carell dressed exactly like me in The 40 Year Old Virgin, and it was time for a re-thinking of my wardrobe. Pam has taught me a ton about putting clothes together, and also about the importance of your wardrobe in communicating who you are. She also introduced me to the joys of Champagne, Brussel Sprouts and Eggplant, which for some stupid reason not recalled I thought I didn't like. Thanks sweetie!

4) I'm a Turkey Hunter. My favorite Fall activity is heading out into the woods with my English Setter and chasing gangs of Wild Turkeys, splitting them apart, zipping Booker up in the dog bag, and calling them back in. When I'm lucky enough to get one, we deep fry it, the good old-fashioned Southern way. It natural and beyond delicious.

5) My favorite music is New Age. I have it in the background all the time in my office. I think it drops my blood pressure by about 20 points by late afternoon, and certainly makes me a more mellow dude. But then, I do love Motown too, but that's an entirely different mood. My favorites? Jeff Oster, and Marvin Gaye.

6) I believe Heaven on Earth is Cortona Italy. The people and food and wine are truly amazing, and Pam and I have made some incredible friends there over the years. Last summer, I even got to meet Frances Mayes, author of Under The Tuscan Sun (only because my effervescent wife knew I really wanted to meet her, but didn't have the cojones to walk over and initiate a conversation). Frances is infinitely more interesting than Diane Lane, who played her in the movie of the same name, and I was as thrilled as a teenage boy meeting a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model, and at a similar loss for words. So she and Pam started yakking about jewelry.

7) If I weren't doing research and marketing, I would be a chef. I LOVE to cook, especially Italian food, and especially meat on the grill. Baking is for people with much more patience than I have. If you come to our house for dinner, you will leave full, and a little sloshed with Italian wine. We guarantee it.

So now you have it. Seven pieces of my life that are relevant to me and the people and dogs who put up with me, but probably not very interesting to you! But thanks for reading!

As for the tagging, everyone I would tag has already been "it"!

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Marketing Questions

2008-11-22T22:01:48-05:00

I am blessed and cursed with noticing all forms of marketing, and even though I've been in the business 28 years, I have fewer answers now than I did in 1980 when I started. There is SO much mediocrity and piffle in advertising and marketing that it boggles the mind to think that anyone could look at ads or campaigns or messages and think they are good enough to represent their brands.

But they do. Every day.

And it always blows me away when a marketing "expert" suggests that if people *hate* the marketing message or its intrusive delivery, it's good enough that the people are talking about it.

Or that's OK if an ad really insults you or pisses you off, because "you're not the target market."

That's right. A negative image to them is better than no image at all. It's OK if people hate you, and much worse if they ignore you. And we have to do *something*, even if the message we can cobble together is at best mediocre.

That spam emails and pop-up ads that won't go away are OK because if .001% of the recipients order from those ads they have paid for themselves. There's no downside.

So here is my list of marketing questions of the day, questions for which I have no answers, just wonderment.

1. Why are pigs always smiling and dancing on signs at a Barbecue Restaurant? Does anyone think that pigs are happy about barbecue?

2. Does anyone know anyone who has *ever* purchased an item from pop-up ads?

3. Why do commercials on the radio for auto dealerships feature the same fast-talking dude with the same slick radio voice, when all research suggests that people have zero trust of fast-talking auto salesmen?

4. Why do auto dealerships buy the huge full-page ads week after week after week, just like all of the other ones do? Why are they SO afraid to try something different?

5. Why is it OK to use stereotypes in ads, as long as the stereotypes are only for white men? Why are men so frequently depicted as inept or clueless in advertising presumably designed to sell them stuff?

6. How can advertising agencies allow their clients to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on marketing campaigns, but nothing on research that will help the client understand the needs and wants of the target markets?

7. Do men really think that beer will give them access to the beautiful women in the beer ads, or ones like them?

8. Does the nudity in European advertising get more attention and sell more stuff than the more fully clad ads in the USA?

9. How much viagra and "male enhancement" are actually sold via spam email? Could anyone *really* trust their credit card numbers to those spam marketers?

10. Do the answers to questions 7, 8, and 9 give the answer to 5?

11. Why are advertising prices tied to cpm rather than increases to revenue? Don't say it's because revenue and advertising can't be correlated.

12. Why does any company have a website that looks just like their brochure?

13. Why does someone with no marketing training or experience ever get placed in charge of marketing?

14. If a person laughs at or is entertained by an ad, is he more likely to buy the product?

15. Why are so many television commercials dumbed down to the 5th grade level of comprehension?

16. Why do CMO's and marketing departments rarely have a voice in the company Executive Committee? Who is speaking for the customer there?

17. Why is marketing always the first cut when the company is struggling with making its quarterly budget numbers? Why do companies sacrifice the long term on the altar of the short?

18. Why do companies have advertising budgets, but no amount of time required to be spent in the field with customers learning about them?

19. Why do companies let the companies that create their advertising handle their marketing research in which the creative work is evaluated?

20. Why would any organization NOT be exploring opportunities to connect with customers and markets via new media?

21. Why would any organization so blithely accept the old saw that "half of my advertising is wasted"?

22. Why are agencies so slow to embrace measurement models?

23. Why is PR *ever* put under marketing?

24. Why are agencies risk-takers when it comes to creative content, but not when it comes to media buying?

25. Why do marketing researchers perpetuate their own oblivion by giving such boring presentations that are irrelevant to the decisions of the day? Why is so much of their information "nice to know" but not actionable?

26. Would anyone really hire a personal injury attorney because of a TV ad or a hundred TV ads?

27. Do politicians or their managers *really* believe voters are stupid enough to believe the negative drivel they push late in the campaigns?

28. Has any voter *ever* been persuaded or motivated by a recorded telephone message?

29. Could *anyone* possibly believe Tony Little is a credible spokesman for exercise equipment?

30. Are people really so gullible as to believe they can look like the models by buying the exercise equipment? (Unless the "model" is Tony Little)

Why are marketers so content to settle for mediocrity? To do the same old marketing that is about as unique as a Golden Retriever in the suburbs? If marketing is about being different, why is there so much boring, redundant similarity?

And what are we going to DO about it?

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Personal Brands (again)

2008-11-18T12:02:29-05:00

So much has been written recently about personal brands recently, that I hesitated to add to the pile. Tom Peters wrote an article called The Brand Called You in Fast Company. His call to action:

Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You.

He's right on. Great stuff. We have to think of ourselves as "brands" and develop and market and position ourselves just as if we were a product. Cool!

But wait. On November 6, the frighteningly bright Geoff Livingston weighed in with his own thoughts on personal branding, in a blog post called "I Don't Care About Your Personal Brand". I subscribe to Geoff's blog and you should too. He wrote:

Quite frankly online marketing is not about silly personalities with motorcycles (me) or rubber ducks or even pole dancing. If you want to defend your right to be stupid — all in the name of a personal brand — go for it. But while momentarily interesting, your personal brand won’t build real value for the market – unless your personal reputation revolves around delivering consistent regular value to your community.

Absolutely right. Without substance, a brand is nothing more than an empty promise or logo. Zilch.

And just today, Steve Woodruff penned a great post on "What's Your Value Add" on the personal branding issue for the Marketing Profs Daily Fix. Steve is not quite ready to pitch the notion of personal brands, but states emphatically:

You don't have a brand worth a nickel unless you are clear in what value you have to offer. That's true of personal branding, corporate branding, political branding, and whatever other type of branding du jour we'd like to dream up.

Absolutely dead-on.

Reconciling all these points of view, Geoff sees reputation as different from, or much bigger than, a personal brand. And he's right, it is bigger and more important. But I think Tom, Steve and I see one's personal brand as inclusive of reputation.

But can't you have a brand without any substance or value? Aren't there Paris Hilton's in Social Media who are nothing more than sham consultants - well-known but devoid of real substance? Sort of like the real popular, pretty kids in high-school that were on everybody's party list, but really dumb as a box of hammers.

Of course there are flakes, but reality catches up to them sooner or later. Or sometimes, they end up being able to BS their way to a lucrative career and end up driving a nicer car than you have.

All we can do is be the best that WE can be, and believe in karma!

The Place of Personal Brands

Maybe one day this term will find itself occupying a space on "Buzzword Bingo", just like the has-been actors used to appear on Hollywood Squares. But I think that looking at oneself as a "personal brand" is here to stay, especially since social media is forcing disintermediation in the business of marketing. It is a handy framework for helping people understand themselves as a business, and for making them think about WHO and WHAT they are, and what value they can add to their communities.

But Geoff and Steve are right.

You HAVE to focus on adding value first, not your shine.

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Motrin Moms

2008-11-16T22:21:07-05:00

Motrin has stepped in a great big pile of Twitter Mom Wrath. And it is ugly. Someone at their agency is going to have a very bad day tomorrow.

Check out this video on YouTube. The video was added today, and at this writing has had 2014 viewers. (How many has it had when you looked at it?) Note how the creator has used Twitter screen shots to communicate her points.

Twitter moms are talking about why they will never use Motrin again.

#motrinmoms is the number one trending topic on http://search.twitter.com.

If you search motrin + moms on google, you get five blogs hammering Motrin for being everything from insensitive to condescending, all penned today - Sunday. And on the right, hee, you get a paid ad. It's Motrin, telling Moms "we feel your pain!" Un.be.lievable.

Here is the Motrin Advertisement online that has caused all the fuss. Take a look at it, if it's still up when you read this, and decide for yourself. Whoops! They DID take it down! Here it is on YouTube.

Several pundits and critics have opined that the whole public relations fiasco could have been avoided if Motrin had done focus groups with Moms and asked them to react to the ads. Supposedly, they would have learned from these participants that many mothers would find the ads belittling and condescending.

Could focus groups have averted this nightmare for Motrin? Maybe.

I don't know whether focus groups were involved in any way in the creation of this advertising, but I have to say honestly that it does not appear so. There are too many aspects of the ad that to me would not have passed any credible disaster-check, too many phrases that would have made participants sit up and say, "wait a minute".That is, if...

If the moderator had created a dynamic where participants felt comfortable expressing points of view that may have dissented from the majority opinion.

If the participants had been asked to write down their reactions to the ads first before expressing them verbally.

If the participants had understood that there were no right or wrong answers in the group, and that their opinions and reactions were valued especially if they disagreed with the way the rest of the group felt.

If the participants had been allowed to divide the ad into the parts that resonated well, and the parts that did not.

If the participants had gone through an emotion chart to show all of the feelings the ads gave them, and then asked to correlate the parts of the ad to the individual feelings.

If the moderator had been attuned to the body language of participants who were keeping quiet.

If the participants had been made to understand that groups are not about agreement (especially important for women) but about understanding.

If the moderator had used perception analyzer.

If the client used a moderator who was separate from the agency, and owed her allegiance to the client rather than to the Agency.

If the client used an experienced moderator who was completely comfortable telling them that they better pitch this ad and come up with content that was not offensive to its target market.

Any of these could have prevented the problem, assuming the clients and agency behind the glass listened. Agencies hate focus groups - and the truth is that focus groups should NOT always be used to assess advertising creative. EVERYONE has an opinion on what makes good, effective advertising, and who is right?

But the reaction today of the Twitter Moms is a pretty strong argument that clients and agencies should spend more time talking with their customers and less time talking to their customers.

Sooner or later, maybe with the help of Twitter and a few other PR calamities such as this one, agencies and clients may begin to get it.

What do you think?

This just in - Motrin has taken down the page and will pull the ads. So they are listening now.

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So...What IS Marketing?

2008-11-07T16:33:16-05:00

I asked the question two days ago - what is marketing? So many people define marketing so generally and broadly it covers nearly everything in an organization. But to narrow the definition doesn't seem right either; it is certainly more encompassing than just promotion, or advertising and PR, right?

There were some terrific and thoughtful blog comments:

The brilliant Beth Harte described a debate she got into with a fellow professor:

Thinking I was so smart and all, I used the AMA definition that was drilled into my head & some of the definitions above. He says: "Beth, it's simple. It's the exchange of goods/services for money. That's it." Now who's the smart one? Him, of course. Basically, it makes sense. How you get to the exchange and what happens afterwards is, of course, a different story. :)

Amber Naslund, is another marketing brainiac, and she weighed in:

Marketing is a function of building long-term, business-based relationships with the people who give your company money...so to that end, I think marketing (like many other aspects of business) shouldn't be compartmentalized...the reality is that customer relationships are forged at every level of the business - from the quality of the product/service, to customer support, to how you communicate that value to the audience, whoever it is. IT sounds like I'm copping out, but truly I think *every* function of the business needs to take a marketing mindset, at least if they're operating under my definition.

Heather Rast of Insights and Ingenuity writes:

Marketing... is a connection between a target/audience/consumer and another body (which) can be a company, or it can be an individual...I believe the key to successful marketing, to making that connection, is an emotionally compelling reason for the target/audience/consumer to believe.

Kevin Huff took a bottom-up approach:

I'm a firm believer that EVERYONE in a company is "in Marketing." No, I don't believe everyone should REPORT into Marketing, just that everyone receiving a paycheck from Company A is responsible for spreading good cheer about Company A. Specifically, I think Marketing as a department should be that umbrella you mention, controlling the messages stemming from Advertising, Interactive Marketing, Branding, Social Marketing, Product Marketing, Field Marketing, Training, SALES (it should not be an island), Channel Marketing, Business Development, Corporate Strategy, Public Relations, Customer Service, both Reactive and Proactive Marketing, and the portions of IT responsible for Intranet, Internet, and Extranet servers/networks.

Here's what I think.

I believe companies need to do two things to wrap their brains around "what is marketing" without being overwhelmed and feeling like a teenage boy on a visit to a French beach.

1. They need to understand that marketing is a strategy that derives direction from the corporate vision and from marketing research.

2. They need to differentiate between the marketing ethos (or mindset if you like Amber's word better), and the marketing function.

Put simply, MARKETING provides the "how you are going to get there" once you understand where you are and decide where you want to go (vision).

Everyone and every department of every organization need to have a marketing ethos. They need to understand that the success of the organization rests solely upon its ability to get and keep customers - on its ability to drive cash flow by making non-customers buy, and by making current customers buy more. Simple, right?

So employees and departments need to be 1) educated regarding WHY customers buy, and 2) coached to use that information drive higher sales, such as by providing outstanding customer service, or extra fast delivery, a more reliable, customer-friendly internet connection, or whatever else, and 3) provided with feedback on that performance. Marketing needs to be a PASSION - originating with management and driving down through the organization. You want to see passion, take a look at Gary Vaynerchuk.

It doesn't matter what you do in any organization - by doing your job with passion and a strong marketing mindset you can have a wildly positive effect upon sales.

The marketing function is most likely to be narrowed. Product and Price are two of the "P's" that will require extensive fiddling and buy-in from up and down and across the organization (but they better employ a marketing mindset when doing so)! Channels or product placement change depending upon what type of organization it is; not everyone needs to worry about distribution the same way.

That leaves promotion as the only traditional element of marketing that may consistently be within the marketing function. Advertising, PR, Point-of sale, Community outreach. So, people think that's all marketing is.

And organizations commit corporate malfeasance by thinking of marketing as only advertising and PR. They put the CEO's nephew in charge and tell him to start working the press. But in limiting marketing they FAIL their customers and FAIL their organization and FAIL their stockholders.

The great organizations also understand that marketing is the vanguard and the steward of the marketing ethos. It is the voice of the customer to every other part of the organization. It listens, processes and reports and cajoles and drives. Marketing is the catalyst for action that will make the customer experience easy and delightful. It MAKES the organization look at itself through the eyes of its customers. And forces it to improve when doing so would increase sales. No excuses!

It is the propagator of PASSION!

So there you have it! When was the last time you talked with a customer to ask how you are doing? What your competitors are doing? And what did you DO with that information?

Do you have a marketing mindset? Passion is contagious.

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What is Marketing?

2008-11-04T15:31:34-05:00

Having just left the Marketing Profs conference in Arizona after a fantastic couple of days of fellowship and learning with fellow marketers, my wife Pam and I were having a spirited discussion the other day on marketing - like, what exactly is it?

In some countries, it's going to the supermarket and buying stuff.

Boone and Kurtz in "Contemporary Marketing Wired" defined it as follows, taking care to hit all four of the classic "P's":

"Marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, services, organizations, and events to create and maintain relationships that will satisfy individual and organizational objectives."

Wikipedia (needing a citation) takes these "four P's" and and adds three more, People, Process and Physical Evidence.

Oh and if you're involved in Web Marketing, there's personalization, participation, peer-to-peer and predictive modeling.

The people who REALLY ought to know are the AMA, or the American Marketing Association. They approved the following definition in 2007:

"Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large."

That should clear it right up.

Look at any marketing tome and you will see the same comprehensive, all-inclusive sieve of a definition.

I could go on, but you don't want me to.

I have been doing marketing research and marketing consulting for 28 years, and it was obvious after 3 that we do not have anything close to a concrete, common notion of what marketing IS. All of these definitions are excessively general because we have to create one that applies to ALL businesses - when the truth is that every function of every organization has some component that meets the above criteria.

So when we take any commonly accepted definition of what marketing IS, and try to overlay this definition upon our organization, we reach the troubling conclusion that marketing is...

EVERYTHING

And when marketing is everything, marketing is nothing.

It's just too hard to wrap one's brain around, let alone measure.

No wonder marketing is the first item on nearly every corporate chopping block. It's easy to whack the nebulous expenditures for which there is dubious return. And no wonder CMO's get canned more often than any other C Suite function. People aren't clear on either what they are doing or what they should be doing but aren't. And no wonder CEO's can so easily delude themselves into thinking they can handle the marketing for their company.HA!

So what exactly is marketing in your organization? How do you define it, and how do you measure its impact on your bottom line?

But don't give me a definition - we have enough of those. Tell me what functions fall both directly (advertising, PR research) and indirectly (customer service?) under the marketing umbrella. Think bottom up instead of top down.

What is in marketing?

And what is not in marketing that should be?

Today I'm inviting commentary and brainstorming. In a few days I'll post my own thoughts and credit others for their help and insights as to what marketing is...

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Wordslaughter

2008-10-28T14:42:45-04:00

Steve Woodruff had a fantastic blog post on Wordslaughter in the First Degree, and the hilarious thing is that the perpetrators usually have NO idea they are doing it.

They think it makes them sound smart. And that's VERY scary for those of us who do marketing for a living!

Banish these words from your marketing lexicon. Now.

Or risk people whipping out these cards during one of your presentations!

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Face Your Fear - And Beat It

2008-09-25T17:10:43-04:00

What are you doing with your marketing now?

Pulling back? Cutting your budget? Deferring until next year so you can see what happens, or see what the economy does?

What you should be doing is spending.

Remember, it is when everyone else is afraid and pulls back from the ledge that the greatest opportunity lies. In battle. In the stock market. In real estate. And in marketing.

Be smart. Do your homework.

But spend. Connect.

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Microsoft - Guest Blog by Paul Ardoin

2008-09-23T17:21:04-04:00

Microsoft's $300 million ad campaign underscores Apple's marketing message

So I just saw the new Microsoft "I'm a PC" ad. For a direct response to Apple's insanely famous "I'm a Mac" campaign, it scores some points. The main point, of course, being that PC users--despite how Apple pigeonholes PCs--are not lacking in creativity.

But Microsoft counters it with a marketing message that has rarely, if ever, succeeded. The message is that Windows is for everybody. And if Windows is for everybody, then it's for you. Right?

Well, not really. That may be what Alex Bogusky was going for in the ad, but the subliminal message is one that should be familiar to anyone who has seen The Incredibles: if everyone is special, then no one is special. Yahoo! used this message, and it hasn't worked. Pepsi was doing great being the cola for young people; then they changed to being the cola for everyone and saw their market share stagnate.

Apple's ads, for all the talk of it pigeonholing PCs, has exactly the same message as Microsoft's ads: PCs are for everyone. But Macs? Macs aren't for everyone. Macs are for you. You are the one who's creative. You are the one who wants to show off in a meeting that you aren't going to be slave to corporate PCdom. You are the one who doesn't want to waste time deleting bloatware.

And Apple also has in their ads another point that Microsoft makes: PCs are useful. Apple even says in their ads: PCs do awesome things with spreadsheets. PCs are for finances. PCs are for work.

Macs, on the other hand, are for life. They are for doing the things that matter to you that aren't work. They're for making home videos of your kids, or for putting a music mix together, or putting a collage together of your roommate's sloshball game. Work, and by extension, PCs, are necessities. Macs are for enjoyment.

Marketing Magician Frank Martin asked how Apple would respond to the new Microsoft marketing blitz -- the Seinfeld/Gates ads, the new "I'm a PC" ad.

But does the blitz even warrant a response? The Seinfeld/Gates ads are puzzling, and I think the reason that people are puzzled is that the ads don't seem genuine. Microsoft wouldn't make computers out of cake. Microsoft wouldn't make grandma change the oil in the car. The ads are all edginess and wackiness from a company that the public perceives as the polar opposite of edgy and wacky. And with the I'm a PC ad -- which, unlike the Seinfeld/Gates sitcom ads, actually makes sense -- Microsoft just underscored Apple's marketing message -- and are reportedly spending $300 million to do it.

If I were Steve Jobs, I'd think about writing a thank you note to Crispin Porter + Bogusky, maybe even including QuickBooks for the PC so they can calculate how much of Microsoft's money they just wasted.

_____________________

Paul Ardoin has worked for corporations, agencies, and non-profits in marketing and public relations for over 15 years. He is the Director of Marketing at visionapp North America and blogs at visionapp.wordpress.com.

Using Social Networks to Network

2008-09-22T18:19:06-04:00

Here is a short video of Seth Godin stating what should be obvious, but apparently to many it is not. Networking is not about how many friends you have on Facebook, how many followers on Twitter or Plurk, or how many connections you have on LinkedIn.

It is about helping people achieve their goals. Then, they in turn, will help you achieve YOUR goals.

You DO have goals don't you?

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Microsoft - The Real Deal

2008-09-19T09:49:07-04:00

Hello, I'm a Mac. I used to be a PC, but now I'm a Mac, and I love Apple. I have the ipod, the iphone, and have all of the religious fervor of the recently converted.

That disclosed, I am also a student of marketing. And Alex Bogusky (fellow Mac user) has hit one out of the freakin' park and into the Bay with the new Microsoft ads.

You saw the two initial ads with Seinfeld and Bill Gates - I blogged about them here and here. All over the Internet, advertising experts were been chiming in about how the ads weren't funny. About how the chemistry between the two was not good. About how the Tech world was just "meh" over the thin content.

People sat back and asked, "is this it?" Is this Microsoft's response? What were they thinking?Is THIS what you get for $300 million?

Bloggers blogged. People commented. They wondered out loud. Asked the question. Twittered. Plurked. Liked the commercials. Hated the commercials. Posted the commericals to YouTube and loved them. Hated them. Vlogged. Commented.

Wow. Next thing you know you have buzz. The second Seinfeld/Gates ad had 1,400,000 hits on YouTube, and 2076 comments. There were daily comments on Plurk and Twitter, and much disagreement over whether the ads were "for real" or just a set up.There was much wonder why such talent had produced such drab content.

People were looking, watching and wondering. They were paying attention, and attention is absolutely the hardest thing to capture in today's advertising world.

And what a set-up it was. Last night, out came the real deal. And they were brilliant.

The Apple PC lookalike starts out and says: "Hello I'm a PC. And I've been made into a stereotype".

And then, the music starts and Bogusky shattered the hell out of the stereotype. Made a total mockery of it.

Think about this for a moment. These ads - the strategy, the set-up and the execution - beautifully reflect the way the world is today. They used two American icons to create interest and curiosity and buzz, then sledge-hammered home the central message. "If you use a PC, you really are in pretty good company."

And there's more. There is an action plan! These ads are going to provide the underpinning for all of the Microsoft "geniuses" who will be populating Best Buy and Circuit City come November and December.

And anyone who thinks this strategy was not carefully planned and executed, who thinks Microsoft and CP+B got rid of Seinfeld because he wasn't funny and changed direction in two weeks, has NEVER produced a television commercial. This has been in the works for months.

Will this commercial make a PC user out of me? NO WAY! I love my Macbook Pro, and there is no way I'd change teams now. Most of the Mac users I know feel the same way.

But that doesn't mean the advertising will fail. Most buyers make a convenience decision when it comes to their computer; they buy what they know, what is close-by and available now, and what their friends and businesses have. For most people, that is a PC. These ads will make it easier for them to feel good about that decision.

So, hats off to Crispen Porter and the venerable Alex Bogusky. We look forward to seeing what comes next!

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Microsoft Responds to Apple - Part 2

2008-09-16T14:51:52-04:00

Now it is getting a little, not much, but a little more interesting.

The latest ad shows buddies Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld living with a "normal" family in an attempt to get back in touch with "real people". As Jerry noted, Bill lives in some moon house hovering over Seattle like the Mother ship, and Jerry has so many cars he gets stuck in his own traffic! The family has awkward teenage kids, a sensitive Mom and Dad, a wacky, chainsaw-wielding grandma who gets the best lines ("Who took my teeth outta da freezer?")

Here it is!

This is nearly a five minute video, so clearly the hope is that the campaign is going to go viral. They are doing a good job of stimulating hits with the ads during prime time. The video was added to YouTube September 11, and as of today (five days later) the video has 1,135,278 hits. Not bad. 3503 viewers have "rated' the video, and the average rating was four stars out of five. Again, not bad. It's getting buzz.

So what are they hoping to do with this series of ads? Here's what we can glean so far.

Microsoft is building the brand. By using two extremely rich and successful American icons with dramatically different styles, it is creating interest and curiosity. People want to watch to see what happens.

Microsoft is using the sit-com model to help the viewers develop a relationship (connect?)with the people in the ads. Most know Jerry (who is on character in the ads) - but have only heard and read about Bill Gates. The interplay between the two can only be fascinating. And I wouldn't be surprised to see members of this family again in future ads.

Microsoft is trying to look "approachable", to contrast with Apple's perceived "elitist". (Disclosure: I use a Macbook Pro, have an ipod and an iphone.)

It's very understated. You don't see a Microsoft logo until the end, and you only see it twice.

Microsoft is hoping to resonate with all of the "connecting" talk. They wanted to "connect" with "real people". Jerry observed they "connected with" the family. At the end Jerry says to Bill, "You've connected over a billion people" (Bill quickly agrees), and asks what is next. Then the Microsoft logo pops up with the tag line "perpetually connecting" morphing into PC. Guess what the push is going to be when all of the Microsoft reps are working in the Best Buy and Circuit City stores this December? Yup - connecting with people.

So far, we would have to judge the effort a good one. I'll bet top-of-mind awareness for Microsoft is higher. They are creating interest and curiosity. And they have a plan for using the ads to support an all-out sales effort in the stores. And I'll also bet they have a whole lot of that $300 million remaining!

Watch with me to see what happens!

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Microsoft Responds to Apple

2008-09-05T14:51:56-04:00

Wow - it could not have been timed better! I have been writing about advertising, about what makes it good or bad, and Microsoft decides to provide us with a real-time case study! Let's take a look.

Following is a television advertisement that was on Monday Night Football last night.

This was a 90 second ad, created by Crispin Porter + Bogusky (Advertising Genius/Superstar Alex Bogusky) and the association was reported beautifully by Fast Company before it was ever aired. I couldn't wait to ask my Plurk friends what they thought of it!

These are all smart marketing people. A tough group, with high knowledge and high expectations. And they also illustrate the type of audience that Microsoft is going to hope to be speaking to - one that is wired, and may not be receptive to the message.

It's not often we get a full analysis of an ad strategy before we ever get to see it, but then not every client has the profile and budget of Microsoft. Plus, people have been watching for the past two years while Apple has been using Justin Long to deftly poke Microsoft in its soft, atrophied underbelly, and were wondering when the company was finally going to get pissed off enough to stand up and start swinging. It's hard to get an answer regarding just how many users have switched from PC to Mac over that time period, but we do know that Mac sales are spinning Apple to new levels of revenue, cash and profitability. And oh yeah, during that time period the stock has risen from about $60 a share to its current $160.

Not that Microsoft is hurting or anything - it's a $60 billion company and revenues were up 18% last quarter.

Still, I guess it ticked them off. Microsoft is off its ass now. Not exactly swinging yet, but everyone's watching to see what Goliath will do this time. If you had $10 Billion in cash, how much of it would YOU spend to protect your market position? The guess is that Microsoft is going to spend $300 Million on its total marketing program, and a big chunk of that will be in advertising support.

So what is Microsoft hoping to accomplish with this series of ads? How will they measure success? I'm going to throw out some wild guesses:

Coolification. They want to be perceived as equal to Apple (or better) as an organization on the cutting edge of (or redefining) cool. They did it once, many years ago; can they do it again?

They want to improve the image of the brand among the general computer buying public, and among those who are decision leaders in the field (technical writers, bloggers, media technorati, and the guys with spiky hair you see in the coffee shops who are selling their third business before they are 30).

They want to solidify the image of the brand among business users, which have always been their core customer group.

They want to stop losing customers and market share to Apple - stop the bleeding.They want to move more PC's so they can move more software. They are, after all, the world's largest software company.

They want the dealers who sell PC's and Microsoft products to see the company making a massive commitment to advertising support, so that the dealers will feel better about pushing the products, and customers will feel better about buying them. Microsoft is going to be sending 350 of its own employees into Circuit Cities and Best Buys to "facilitate" computer purchase decisions. This campaign will be designed to support their efforts. December is right around the corner, after all, and a lot of computers are purchased for Christmas.

They want their customers to smile when they see the commercials, as Mac users smile when they see Justin Long.

I'm sure there are more, so help me think of them. What do you think Microsoft is trying to accomplish with these ads? Will it work? Will the ads be good ones, or will they suck? I can't wait to see the follow-ups!

And I think it's safe to assume this first ad was just to set the stage and get attention. Nothing has happened yet, but people are watching. Michael Buffer has just yelled, "Let's get ready to rumble!", and the contestants are in their corners. Apple looks fit and ready and cocky, and Microsoft looks big and pissed and determined, but a little bloated!

Follow with me as future spots are unveiled and we begin to get some glimpses of their strategies, tactics, assumptions and adjustments! I'd LOVE to hear what you think, and learn as we go on what will be a very high-profile, expensive marketing/advertising slugfest!

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"Good" Advertising

2008-09-04T10:11:52-04:00

So what is good advertising? Think you know? You're not alone; everybody else does too! I posed the question today on Plurk, and received the following responses:

So the adjectives that were used to describe these "good" ads were "terrific", "creative" and "great". Tim Jackson likes the ones that "pull you in" and capture emotion by relating".

There was not one question concerning what I meant by "good" - because to my Plurk friends (all exceptional and smart marketing people) the word needed no clarification.

It's kind of the like the Supreme Court said about porn - "It's hard to define, but I know it when I see it."

You see, part of the challenge in creating advertising is that we all know what "good" is, but the definition varies with each individual. How can a creative team expect to develop exceptional advertising when everyone is going to have a different opinion regarding whether the ad is good (or what infinitesimal tweak might make it just "perfect)?

The agency knows one thing, the marketing department another, and the CEO's wife still another.

But what makes advertisements good? Is it just that they were entertaining? That they capture and hold the attention of the viewer when he would like to make a quick fridge run? That the ads were memorable, or made people feel laugh or good?

Or is it that they move product - that they get bodies into the stores or on the phone with their wallets open?

Here is what I think:

Any advertisement that does not increase sales, or lead directly or indirectly to an increase in sales is an irresponsible waste of time and money. I don't care how many awards or accolades from the advertising community the campaign wins; if it does not create sales or move people down the decision cycle, it is a waste of money.

All advertising should have specific measurable goals, and the goals should be in a stepwise progression leading customers down the decision cycle directly to sales. Does it increase our awareness? Does it increase our positive associations? Does it build brand and/or trust? Does it increase store traffic? Improve the conversion ratio of store customers? If you have specific, measurable goals, you have a defense when you hear that the CEO's wife's bridge group thinks the ads are appalling (Well, we did increase top of mind awareness in the target segment by 25%, which was the goal.)

The sales process or decision cycle is roughly defined as follows (there are other models, some using different terminology, but these cover them all). Attention - Interest - Conviction (or trust) - Desire - Close. Every advertisement should be focused hard upon building equity for the organization in one or two of these areas. The art part of advertising is in knowing what message or form will lead the consumer to the next phase of the sales process, and in being sure your advertising or marketing program is not overloaded in one of the phases. For instance, you would not want your campaign to have all of its ads or messages focusing upon building awareness, nor would you want to use a hard close message in every one. And you can't do all five in one ad, unless you are Tony Robbins and you have a half hour infomercial at 3:00 in the morning.

Every advertisement should ask for action, either explicitly (call this number) or implicitly (believe in us).

Too many companies sacrifice conviction at the altar of awareness. Sure people may remember the ad, but if they hate you because it's so annoying, what have you gained? Awareness can be either positive or negative - you want to be sure you are gaining the positive kind.

Brand-building is the heart of a marketing/advertising program, and it is integral to conviction and desire. If the target audience believes in the brand, it's easier to get them to the close.

Companies that don't ask for the business don't deserve it. Close the sale. Ask for a call. Ask for the visit. But make your case for deserving it first.

Marketing research can be used to make advertising better, by helping the marketers understand better the needs and the vocabulary and the desires of the target population of customers. Also, once the goals are defined, it becomes easier to determine whether the ads actually do what they are supposed to do. Do they increase awareness? Do they keep the interest of the target audience? (Why) Do they build a positive impression of the brand? Do they build trust? Do they create desire for the product? Will they lead directly or indirectly to more sales?

Next, I want to tackle the issue of relevance. Sometimes, advertising is seen as pointless. To wit:

"I love Clydesdales, but I'm not going to drink Budweiser."
"I never drink Coke."
"I have enough credit cards. Visa's Olympics ads are not going to make me get another one."

Amber Naslund of Altitude, and author of The Brand Box has agreed to write this one with me - it should be fun!

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Using Marketing Research To Make Better Advertising

2008-08-20T15:17:26-04:00

There are a few lucky souls out there who have a unique gift for creating great advertising relying totally on gut instinct. Chances are, you probably are one of them.

NOT. But you may THINK that you are (especially if you are a CEO. And no, I don't really care if I piss off you CEO's who are handling marketing but believe SEO is a subcommittee of NATO. You don't know marketing, and you don't have time to know marketing, but no one in your organization is going to tell you that.)

The men and women who create great advertising are the ones who do more homework than any of the others. They are endlessly curious about why customers are happy, sad, scared, content, upset, motivated to buy, interested and not. They want to know everything about the buying process, from the first tinge of awareness to the development of conviction to the actual exchange of money, and they want to know what they have to do or say to make that happen with more people more often.

Because these smart marketers know that unless advertising is increasing sales, or leading directly in a systematic way to the increase of sales, it is wasted money.

And they know that unless they are doing marketing research, they are shooting in the dark, or at least NOT making the best decisions with the best information.

As I pointed out in a previous blog, marketing research helps marketers make informed decisions about the marketing of goods and services - and reduces the risk of making bad (or ineffective) decisions. But there are many marketers and advertisers who do no marketing research before developing a campaign - because either they think they know the answers, or think they can't afford the money or time it would take to find them.

That's like a lumberjack never taking the time to sharpen the axe because he's too busy cutting. Never mind the time spent sharpening would dramatically increase his productivity. Or it's like a doc performing surgery without first doing an X-ray or MRI ("I'm sorry - we don't have any money in the budget for radiology - just start cutting and we'll see what happens.")

So I'll make it easy for you. Here are six things you can start doing right now to help make more informed marketing decisions, and to keep from doing advertising that sucks. Many of these won't cost you a dime out of pocket, but can earn amazing returns in the form of better marketing, more satisfied customers and increased sales.

Talk to your employees who talk to customers. It amazes me every day that the very people who have the most customer contact are seldom asked for their thoughts on ways to improve customer service, or how to connect with customers with better advertising. Start NOW! Establish a conversation with your line employees that is systematic and ongoing. Do qualitative and quantitative. Reward with the blaring of trumpets those employees who show the most perspicacity and initiative to uncover the needs of customers. My client companies that do this average ten good ideas a year that they implement with great returns.

Talk to your customers. Ask them what you are doing right. Wrong. What frustrates them about your organization. What excites them.How they would describe you to a colleague. As them to compare you to the competition. Ask how you can make it easier for them to use your company, or to buy your product. Ask them to rate you on a scale of ten, then what you have to do to get a ten. Do this formally with focus groups and interviews, but informally also in stores and on the phone.

Talk to the people you want to do business with you, but don't. One of my clients recently sent me in to the field to do an in-depth interview with 10 of his most desirable prospects, prospects who were currently using another organization and who represented thousands of dollars in sales every year. With what he learned, he eventually converted nine of them into long term customers, and implemented programs that brought hundreds of new customers in to the firm. His return on his research investment was well over 1000%.

Call your hundred newest customers and ask them how they heard of you. Guess what? It probably wasn't the Yellow Pages! Learn from what they tell you and react accordingly. Customers are using the web like never before, and the pendulum is NOT going to swing back to hard copies.

Catalog and read the comments that customers and prospects write on your company blog or website. (You DO allow this, right??) Allow space on your website for customers and visitors to comment. Read and react to them EVERY DAY.

At least once a year, do a customer satisfaction survey via email (you DO collect email addresses, right?)

So with all of this learning and customer perspective, shouldn't it be easier to create advertising that resonates with the people whose money you want? You'll know why customers like you, be changing what they don't like, what language they use to describe you and your competition, where the newest customers are hearing about you and what is intriguing them. Your employees will be proud that you are using their input, and will be inspired to keep giving it to you. You'll make more money, because you'll be investing it better and smarter.

And that's the whole reason for marketing in the first place, right?

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Are Your Messages Easy to Understand?

2008-08-18T15:19:56-04:00

So much of what we do in marketing involves communication. And communication involves assumptions regarding your target audience, and their ability to "get" what you are trying to say.

Sometimes, the attempts fall flat.

Is your audience hearing what you want them to?

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That Commercial Sucks!

2008-08-12T12:35:59-04:00

OK, you have seen a commercial and you HATE it. So much so that you vow never again to purchase that product, or at least as long as the commercial is running. All of your friends hate it too. You hate it so much you change the channel when it comes on.

But how do you know it really sucks? I guess you have to start with what would make it successful, and sucking would be the opposite of that. Or can it suck and still be successful? Can it suck (offend, irritate, repel) and still meet the agency's and clients' criteria for success? Are there unimaginable morons who would actually like this advertisement, and would buy the product in response to it?

Probably. You know some people actually click on the "male enhancement" pop-up ads. And every year we hear about some poor rube who really believed there was a fortune in Nigeria waiting for him to claim it.

The goals of advertising are simple, but the results are impossible to measure and attribute precisely, which makes advertising and marketing a wonderful place for the inept and clueless to hide their incompetence. In which department are you most likely to find the CEO's nephew who took six years to graduate from college? Hint: it's not audit.

But let's simplify for the sake of discussion:

Despite what the agency may say, or what awards the ads may win, the basic goal of advertising and marketing is to increase sales. If it does not sell stuff, or lead to the sale of stuff, you are wasting your money.

Dale Carnegie broke the sales process down into several steps. Of course, he conceived it for direct sales, but it's certainly useful for this discussion.

Attention
Interest
Conviction
Desire
Close

"Close" is where the money actually trades hands - a customer comes in, takes the product, and gives you money. All advertising should either lead directly to a close, or get you nearer to the close by taking the potential customer to and across one of the previous four hurdles.

Advertising should command attention (which is where some advertisers stop. They think if they get noticed, that in itself is a good thing. Hence the pop-up ads and shrieking car dealers. This is wrong.) How many times have you heard someone smugly say "Hey, you may have hated it, but you remembered the ad. You remember who Jeffrey Daumer is too, but you would not want to have dinner with him. Advertising should commend attention, but do so in a way that leads to the next step - creating interest in the product or the company that sells it. If people remember the ad but it turns them off, it's a waste of money.

Advertising should create interest in the product, which is only possible if the market is aware of it. Positive interest means that potential buyers have a good impression of the company and the product. If one hates the company because of the ads, this leap is never made.

Advertising should be credible, should make the target audience convinced it would be a useful purchase for them. Conviction means they believe in the company and the product, and also suggests trust.

The advertising should create or tap into desire for the product - make people want it. Sometimes people already want the product, and this will make them want it now. (Think car ads for new models. Car ads try to make the leap from attention to desire, assuming that people already are interested.) Maybe a price drop or loan sale means it's suddenly more affordable, but you better act now or the opportunity may be lost! The "close" is to get the interested customer to come to the dealership, where the salesman can take over the process, develop the conviction and close the deal.

The advertising should tell the subject how they can buy the object of their desire. Sometimes the "close" will give you a number to call, a website to visit, or an address to stop by.

Everything - yes, everything - should be pointed toward the close. If your advertising does not sell stuff, or lead inexorably to the sale of stuff, then it is a waste of money.

So what's the issue? That should make it pretty easy to say whether an advertisement is good, or whether it sucks. Look at sales! Won't that indicate whether it's working?

Not really. There are many reasons it's just hard to tell whether an ad was effective.

Time lag - long decision cycle: Sometimes ads don't work right away. The create awareness and interest now, leading to the close later. Sometimes especially with big ticket items like cars or furniture, the decision process takes longer, because people can't afford what they want right this minute. So the advertiser bombards the airwaves, hoping for a residual benefit in the form of continued awareness and interest when the buyer is ready to make a decision.

Mix variety: Most of the time, advertisers have more than one medium in the mix. They are doing TV, radio and newspaper ads, and may be playing with Google ads. Say sales do go up, how do you apportion credit for the increase in sales? At this point, even the people in customer service will be claiming credit! Remember, victory has a thousand fathers and defeat is an orphan!

Target Marketing: Say you watch a commercial, and it your opinion it sucks. You decide you have to tell the owner of the business and the agency that produced it so they will stop afflicting you with this miasmal piece of creative rubbish. What are they going to say? First they'll look at you as if you're amusing them with your silly, uninformed opinion. Then they'll tell you, "You're not our target audience."

And the thing is, you're probably not. We typically find commercials to be especially annoying if we identify with no part of it whatsoever, or we think it is insulting. Your opinion, in this instance, means very little to them because they never intended it to sell to you.

And since advertising is something that EVERYBODY has an opinion on, some will like it, some won't.

A key factor in one's identification with any commercial is its language. But we don't all communicate the same way - in fact, only 26% of us in the USA have a four year college degree or higher. If the commercial talks to college graduates on their level, it may be over the heads of a sizable portion of the population.

Dumb it down and you piss off the college graduates with its base simplicity.

Bottom line: You're not going to please everyone.

So how do you decide whether an ad truly sucks? Stay tuned!

Next blog post: How to use marketing research to create advertising and marketing that has the best possible chance of NOT sucking to the most people.

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A Plurkshop on Focus Groups

2008-08-07T11:21:16-04:00

For those of you who have not yet succumbed to the siren call of social media in the form of Plurk and Twitter, a "Plurkshop" is a pretty neat way to collect the thoughts, ideas and whimsical creativity of some of the smartest marketing people on the web. Or, it can be a way to help your colleagues develop an understanding of what you do in a way that they can discuss it intelligently with others. Can I hear anyone thinking "referrals"??

Focus Groups are one of the most widely misunderstood applications in marketing research. Everyone will say they know what a focus group is, but when you press them for a definition, what they come out with may be extremely different from what someone else might say. People routinely say "let's do a focus group", when what they mean is "let's have a meeting", or "let's get a whole bunch of our customers together and feed them and ask them how much they like us."

So Tuesday night, I hosted a "Plurkshop" and invited everybody to weigh in with thoughts, questions, preconceptions, criticisms or anything else relevant to the topic.

The page is here!

We discussed everything from reasons for doing groups, to who hires the moderator, to how much they typically cost. Many of the Plurkshop attendees had some direct experience as a participant or client or had studied the issue in graduate school. Still, as you will see, there is some significant variance in thought regarding how groups are best to be used, and whether they are effective in helping marketers make informed decisions.

One important issue we did not discuss: The best way to insure the success of anyone's focus group project is to hire a good, experienced moderator. A good moderator will not be the one who wins a competitive bid with the lowest price, and will not be the one who rolls over when you say that Jerome in HR wants to add a few questions at the end of the group. If you treat hiring a moderator like you would hiring a surgeon, you can't go wrong. And it IS that important. See my long discourse on hiring a moderator here.

Plurkshops are a pretty neat way to learn, but also to ask questions that might be relevant to your business. I've asked technical questions that were quickly answered by experts in all of the following areas:

Macs, iphones and new software
Blogging
Web site usage and development
SEO
Copy writing

And imagine the possibilities if you need some quick thinking for a marketing question -

Where do you go to get information on insurance products?
What are the most frustrating things you bump into every day in corporate websites?
If you needed to by a new TV today what would you do?

None of this will ever replace traditional research, but it is a great place to go if you want to develop some hypotheses for later testing, or just to get a quick read or short list of places to look for something. It's limited only by your imagination.

Which, come to think of it, has always been marketing's most effective limitation. How much does it limit you?

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STOP - The Corporate America Way!

2008-07-29T11:20:25-04:00

Invest a few minutes to take a look at this hilarious video depicting what might happen if corporate America were tasked with helping people stop at intersections.

Whoops - somebody deleted the video! Must've hit too close to home, or the blonde chic got freaked out. There's a copy of it here.

Why are you laughing? Isn't it with a touch of poignancy? Or shared pain?

Advertising and marketing can be emasculated and stripped of its effectiveness just as easily as the stop sign in this video when people try to accomplish too much, or when the message is not clear and concise. Next time you are considering any communication piece, ask yourself:

What are we trying to say?
Who is our target?
What do we want them to do?
Is it precise? Concise?
How will we measure whether it worked?

Narrow is better than broad. Focus.

And for goodness sake, avoid the temptation to run it by the C-Suite.

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Da Muzzicone

2008-07-16T15:40:47-04:00

Remember the Soup Nazi on Seinfeld? The one whose soup was so good that people waited in line every day just for a bowl of his Split Pea with Bacon or Turkey Chili? But these intrepid souls had to follow exactly the right ordering and paying procedure, or they would find themselves unceremoniously tossed from the buffet line, with the words "No Soup for You" ringing in their ears. It was one of Seinfeld's best moments (and apparently based upon a real character!)

The thing was, no matter how nasty the Soup Nazi was to people, every day they would still timidly queue up for some of his heavenly soup - nobody did it better! If they wanted the best soup, they had to get it here! The satisfied their jones for customer service elsewhere, like maybe Au Bon Pain.

In the tiny Italian hill town of Castiglion di Fiorentino, there is a restaurant that serves beef - the best beef anywhere around. It is served rare, covered with delicious native Olive oil, rosemary and whole green peppercorns. It's called "Bistecca alla Fiorentina".

The restaurant is Da Muzzicone.

When you get there, you are greeted by Muzzicone himself, a 5'7", 270 pound, unsmiling bull of a man who looks as if he could wrestle a live Chianina steer up to the butchering block with his bare hands. He looks you over, and asks (maybe a little pugnaciously) if you have a reservation. If you do, he'll point you to a table. If you don't, "Fuori" - you are waved off and dismissed - no beef for you tonight.

Once you're seated, you get to choose what kind of water you want, sparkling or still.

You have a couple of antipasti and pasta options, usually the same things. And the wine list is a good one.

But for dinner, you WILL be having beef. Not chicken, not fish and not pork. Certainly not Eggplant Parmesan or any other vegetarian option.

The beef will be rare. If you are a good looking woman and he likes you and you are brave enough to ask and you speak Italian, MAYBE he will cook it to medium rare. And if he really likes you, he'll bring it on a special plate, and offer a shy smile.

Everybody else will be having it rare. With rosemary and green peppercorns and the best olive oil imaginable.

And my mouth is watering as I'm writing this.

God, I love that restaurant. I love Muzzicone! Who cares if he's gruff?

Signor Muzzicone made the decision a long time ago who he was and what he wanted to do. He wanted to make the best beef he could, using the best ingredients and cooked the way that would best express the unique flavor of the meat. And it really, really works. The restaurant is usually packed, no matter what time of year, and the patrons clearly love the food. It's simple. It's easy.

More than that it's real. It's authentic. His personality is just part of the experience. If you don't like it, "fuori!"! The local Trattoria will be happy to see you.

To Signor Muzzicone, the customer is not always right. He is not interested in compromising his standards and his integrity to give somebody a meal that is less than exceptional. And HE defines what is exceptional - not the customer.

Muzzicone understands there is security in excellence. In doing one thing better than anyone else around. And in making one's own uniqueness part of the deal. This is what keeps people coming back. And keeps people talking about him.

Ok, so we can't start bitching at customers and expect to become remarkable in a good way. But what can we learn from Muzzicone?

Focus on your core. Be really, really good at it.
Never, ever compromise your standards, even if it costs you a client
The customer is right except when he's wrong.
Be unique.
Be true to yourself and make your personality part of the package.
People respond to and respect passion.
If you have a picture of yourself with Sophia Loren, or Roberto Benigni, put it on your wall!

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Rest and Relaxation

2008-07-15T16:06:21-04:00

I just spent two glorious weeks with my wife in Cortona, Italy, away from the everyday demands of writing blog posts, conducting focus groups, and generally obsessing about how to make people buy more of my clients' products. I had to make three big decisions every day.

1) What time is the nap (which was usually involuntary)

2) Where are we going to eat for dinner?

3) Should we eat Gelato twice or only once today? (Um, twice)

Being in marketing though, you can't ever really turn off the brain. Several times, we heard Americans bitching loudly about the "poor customer service". But was it poor? By what standard?

There are so many ways the Italian marketing culture is different from ours, and over the next couple of weeks I am going to be writing blog posts about some of those philosophies and cultural differences that I think may help us think about ourselves and our companies a little differently - ways that can help us get better personally, and that can help us improve at our life's work.

Some questions to ponder:

What if you were a restaurant that served only beef? Rare. Ask for it to be cooked more, and you'll get yelled at and maybe even tossed. "No beef for you!"

Have you thought about closing your business for three hours at lunch so you can have lunch with friends or rest at home? What about shutting down for two whole weeks while you go on vacation?

Stay with me! We are going to have fun with this one!

Benefits of Social Media

2008-06-23T22:19:11-04:00

Last night Mack Collier posed a question on Plurk, and in no time there was a lively discussion that included bright, energetic social media newbs, and industry veterans such as Mack and Connie Reece. The very cool thing is that these generous social media veterans stayed up late, sharing their experiences and wisdom with people as fast as they could fire the questions. The conversation was happening so fast it was almost impossible to keep up without loading the whole page and reading from the top.

Where else and how else could people have such easy, daily access to some of the brightest minds in their field? Free?

Many kudos to Mack and Connie, whose generosity in sharing time and knowledge day after day is both amazing and inspirational.

What about you? If you know someone who does not understand how social media can open eyes, stimulate creative thinking, present business opportunities, and open brand new worlds of wildly interesting stuff, show them this page.

How Much Time per Day to Blog

And if YOU have not joined Twitter, Plurk, and some of the other sites, what on earth are you waiting for?

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Truth in Advertising

2008-06-18T11:44:28-04:00

Well, it had to happen. We have all seen those college advertisements that paint an unrealistic picture of what life is like on campus. They are scrupulously inclusive, taking great care to have representation from every conceivable ethnic and/or interest group. Gorgeous students are shown in happy interaction with other similarly gorgeous students and in serious but informative classes with tweed-clad professors who are spreading their wisdom with a cheerful avuncularity that has everyone smiling.

Frisbees abound. It rains only at night, and the weather is always warm enough to allow shorts, halters and titillating glimpses (tasteful of course) of badonkadonk. Nobody ever fails, and graduates move on to bright, lucrative futures in medicine, law, rocket science or serving humanity.

As a result, all of the college ads, and most of the websites, look exactly the same. There is no differentiation, whatsoever. Of course, there is safety in this similarity. If you do exactly what is expected, and exactly what everyone else is doing, no one can criticize you.

But they can make fun of you. Check out this video!

See more funny videos at CollegeHumor

This is similar to what I was getting at in my blogpost of yesterday. When you have a commercial or an advertisement that has to go through the management gauntlet for approval, you end up with something that is indistinct and boring and utterly forgettable.It's a complete waste of time. And money.

And the truth is, it doesn't have to be that way. Take a look at some of the excellent college marketing that is being done by the smart people at abeedle.com.

Here is a link to the video page of Kettering University. Watch the adventures of Stickman. It probably took an unbelievable long time to get these short flash presentations approved by all of the marketing experts on campus, but the result is something that is interesting, fun and above all, remarkable.

The result? Potential students love the videos, and send a link to their friends. Applications are way up at Kettering University. And so is the quality of students they are enrolling.

Remarkable beats banal. Every single day.

Commercials the Suits Hate

2008-06-17T16:20:26-04:00

What is it about great advertising that terrifies C Suite types?

The same people who are quick to fire the CMO and offer unsolicited opinions concerning what works in marketing are made to quake in their wingtips with truly breakthrough creative.I do love the stories.

For instance, take a look at what most advertising mavens consider to be the best TV ad of all time. Then consider that the Apple Board wanted to kill it. Too edgy. Steve Jobs and Woz would not hear of it though, and offered to pay for it themselves if the Board wussed out.

And then there is the fantasic commercial from Zazoo that would NEVER be aired in the states. Its message is compelling though, as you will see. This commercial, though too racy for the FCC, has gone WAY viral in YouTube and Spike TV.

The lesson?

The more people who have to approve your marketing and advertising, the more innocuous, bland, ineffective and boring it will be. If everybody is happy, you're wasting your money.

I do focus groups for a living. But I never do them to test creative. The result would be a watered down fiasco of mediocrity.

Advertising needs to stride into the party, make some noise, step on some toes, and command everyone's attention. Not shuffle meekly in, eyes cast at the floor, hoping not to offend. It needs to motivate people to action - not stupor.

So do it! Push the envelope! Take a chance!

It's the only way you're ever going to create something remarkable.

Standing Out

2008-06-09T07:34:15-04:00

Marketing is all about being noticed, isn't it?

Well, no, it's more than that. It's about positioning your company in a positive way. It's about being noticed, making a good impression and being remembered in a world that has an awful lot of marketing noise.

I'm betting, that after reading this blog post from the excellent Cheryl Smith, you will be able to think of one more thing that you can do to help yourself or your company stand out.

Handwritten Notes, Connections, and Lost Luggage.

It's a good story as well as smart advice. Enjoy!

The Question of Plurk

2008-06-04T15:22:07-04:00

Twitter has been twacked lately - in twubble - whatever one wants to term it. It has grown by serious leaps and bounds over the past few months, and seems to be reaching the point, as my Grandma used to say, where its eyes are bigger than its stomach. The Twitter stat blog does not shed much light - the most recent information is from March 14, 2008 and concerns the SXSW conference - which is probably the event that catapulted Twitter into the ionosphere of popularity - you remember the whole Saracuda debacle that hit all of the newsfeeds.

Anyway, we have been seeing WAY too much of the Whale recently - the one that informs us of Twitter's having "exceeded" its Tweet capacity, and asking us to kindly return later. When it works it's been slower than the bell on the last day of school. This is problematic for a lot of folks who use Twitter as a source of inspiration, agitation, investigation or recreation over the course of their workday. Laura Fitton wrote a beautiful description of the Village of Twitter, and the way this service has transformed the @home workplace for many people around the world. When it works, that is.

So with Twitter frustration reaching a peak over the past several weeks, people have been looking at alternatives. I have tried, unsuccessfully, to score an invitation to Jaiku. People have taken a hard look again at Friendfeed, which is more of an aggregation service for many of the other web 2.0 networks, and not really the same thing.

On Monday, Twitter was all abuzz about Plurk, so I decided to give it a look. I joined in a flash, and in seconds was posting "Plurks" to the horizontal timeline that made it easy to see 1) who was saying what when, and 2) who was saying what in response to the original plurk. In no time, I had added 50 "friends" from Twitter, then friends of friends, and before I knew it my timeline was ablaze with plurks.

Too ablaze. It was overwhelming. Impossible. My head was swimming.

Plus, it seemed to be reading "backwards" - the timeline moves right (older) to left (newer). Since we read and write left to right, it seemed odd. WTF?

I had jumped in too far too fast. Wayne Sutton was one of my first friends, and asked me if I had read the "safe-plurking guide". Of course, being chromosomatically averse to "directions", I had not. Nor had I read Plurk's FAQ. I had jumped in and begun playing and posting, and now was finding that there was just WAY too much conversation to keep track of. Time to scale back, and see what the real possibilities are for this service. I had found the way it was NOT going to work.

Everyone seemed to be at about the same place. Wayne Sutton was asking questions and trying to make sense of it. I followed his lead and started doing the same thing. Here is what we found. Following is a cool skitch graphic from Wayne.

There are a lot of things to LIKE about Plurk.

And here is another one from Wayne:

If you're interested, here's a link to all of Wayne's Plurk Screenshots. Way cool. The dude is good. But we knew that already.

I also like the way that on Plurk one can ask questions, and everyone who follows can see the thread, the timeline and what others have said in response. You don't have to be a follower or friend to respond. I asked followers on Plurk what they liked, disliked, and what they perceive as the essential difference between Twitter and Plurk. To make it even easier to see, I can reduce the noise by asking the timeline to show only "my" Plurks and relevant responses. Screenshots follow:

And like anything, one gets from the service what one puts in. If you want to use Plurk to *flirt*, there are a number of people who will be more than happy to float your boat. There is much more of this going on at Plurk than at Twitter, and it is much more suggestive. The political discussion has a harder, more polemical edge to it. All in all, much of the chat seems much less business-oriented, and more "social" - with all of the concomitant norms and standards of behavior - or lack thereof on the part of some. As one said, Twitter is work - Plurk is the party!

As on Twitter, one can "unfollow", but there is no way to "block" those whom you find offensive.

There are some other curiosities as well. Plurk awards "karma" based upon the number of people you invite, your followers and other criteria. At higher karmic levels, you have access to cooler emoticons, like dancing bananas and lips that make kisses. It definitely gets competitive, and you find yourself looking for ways to increase your karmic footprint.

That's when you get in trouble. It seems one of Plurk's flaws is that you need to have a lot of friends and followers to have interesting or well covered conversations, yet if you follow too many your timeline will drive you batshit crazy. Right now with 42 "friends", I have 61 unread Plurks. Wayne Sutton has 255 friends - I can only imagine what his timeline screen looks like. Thankfully, it does have a "mark all as read" button for those who tend to OCD.

One potentially VERY cool feature is that Plurk has the ability to add "cliques", or interest groups that have only people associated with a cause, a particular business, an idea. This has been the one thing missing from Twitter that I think has the potential to be a HUGE plus for Plurk if they pull off the execution well. We have needed a way to distill and aggregate similar ideas and threads and populations. Imagine a "clique" with only your company's employees. Or one of local Obama supporters. You could move easily from there to the "world" to ask a question, then back to your clique with the answer.

All in all, Plurk is still evolving and finding its voice. People are coming up with ways every hour to make the service more useful. Leading the way is, once again, early-adopter and my hero Wayne Sutton. Here's a link to the suggestions; the page is too long to post here! Users are figuring out the ways to use their cell phones, link to pics and stories, and generally make the service more useful and less a waste of time.

Brand new suggestions include using the Plurk timeline as a reminder service for appointments or for post-it style notes. I suspect we'll see more as innovative people begin to use Plurk and develop fun add-ons like a Plurk summize or Plurk-local. Someone is going to have to develop a Wikipedia guide to the vocabulary that is growing exponentially. Whoever heard of a plurkgasm before yesterday?

To summarize: By all means, jump in start to plurk. The only way to add friends for now is to take your name out of your plurk homepage, and type in the person you want to find. For instance to find me, remove your name from your Plurk homepage and type in frankmartin. Most Twitterati are keeping the same user names (except someone apparently hijacked "Scobleizer"), making it easy to find your Twitter friends.

Just be careful about adding followers and following - follow those whom you are sure will be saying things you want to hear!

And as always, think of ways that Plurk can be used to advance our professions - I challenge you to make the most of Plurk for yourself and your family and your friends and your clients.

Use it to build. To create. To learn. To love.

That's REALLY what we're all here for, right? :-)

14 Ways People Screw Up Focus Groups

2008-05-28T12:37:53-04:00

Common Focus Group Mistakes By People Who Don’t know Better, and by those who do, but make them anyway.

Because sometime doing great work is first an understanding and preventing the ways it can go wrong.

1. Bringing qualitative tools to a quantitative fight - If you want to know how many
people will like something, focus groups are not the tool. If you want to understand why
they will like it, they are.

2. Treating research as an expense not an investment - yeah, I know it goes on the expense side of the ledger. But you have to make the “go” decision for research fully expecting to get a return on your investment of time and money. If you can’t understand how research will either a) save you money or b) help you spend money more effectively, don’t do it.

3. Thinking moderators have to look like the target participant group - (Black moderators for African American groups, female for women, etc.) Participants will talk a lot more if they think there is a high likelihood the moderator might not “get it”. And the great moderators will play up that perspective.

4. Trying to moderate your own groups. You can’t be objective about your own organization, or tell the CEO he’s whack when it comes to including questions that are irrelevant to the objectives. See this post to understand what a professional moderator can bring to the table.

5. Using the Moderator as a vendor rather than a partner. Most experienced moderators have been through the mill a few times, and have seen your problem or situation before. They will have some insight regarding the way the groups should be organized to help you get the most from the process. They will have recommendations as to types of questions, ways to dig deeper, and questioning techniques no one in your organization has ever heard of. You don't hire a doc and tell her how to do the surgery.

6. Using the same moderator for every project - sure the wonks in engineering are comfortable with him, but as much as I hate to admit it to my faithful clients, fresh and diverse moderating perspectives can mean more useful results and better marketing decisions. They will make you think and evaluate in different ways.

7. Going with the low bid - This is especially prevalent with companies that don’t have a lot of experience with focus groups, and have a hard time understanding the difference a moderator can make to the overall success or failure of the project. You will pay more for the better moderators, who charge more because they can, sort of like the best surgeons. They bring more value and more experience and will do a more complete job. All the great moderators will admit they a) broke into the business by charging less, and b) were nowhere near as good then as they are now. If you hire an inexperienced moderator, make no mistake about it, you are paying for their training. Be careful. It takes more training and certification to become an Equine Sports Massage Therapist than it does to become a “moderator”.

8. Trying to do too much with the groups. The temptation is always there. While we have customers in the room let’s ask them what they think of our website! Don’t do it. Stick to the project objectives, and go deep, not broad. You’ll get much better understanding that way. Give the participants time to go beyond the initial, top-line answers.

9. Not allowing time for spontaneous discussion. Sometimes the participants know better than you what you need to be talking about. Listen. Don’t try to control every second of the discussion.

10. Too much diversity - Who can argue against diversity? I can. Sometimes you should NOT mix disparate groups. If you are a college and you want to understand what high school juniors and seniors are looking for in your website, you will not want to blend those two groups of students together in one group; they are at two separate points in the college decision process, and you need to understand BOTH positions.

11. Not enough organizational diversity in the back room. The people viewing the groups need to come from all over the organization marketing, customer service, operations, information technology - getting a variety of perspectives and experiences. They will all hear different things during the groups, and the ensuing reconciliation of ideas and brainstorms can be richly rewarding. Note: if the CEO comes you'll have a lot of people there looking serious and taking notes. Encourage that.

12. Not taking advantage of the energy in the back room following the groups. Yeah, I know it’s 10:00 and everyone wants to go home, chill and watch Leno, but take 15 minutes and list the top clarifications, confirmations, surprises and insights derived from the groups while the information is still fresh. Then get together early the next morning and talk about it some more.

13. Depreciating participant opinions because they a) aren’t consistent with yours, or b) come from someone who is wearing stretch pants that could cover the state of New Jersey. Listen to what the participants are saying; don’t discount their opinions because of their socioeconomic status, because they don’t look like you, or because they frequently dangle modifiers.

14. Trying to quantify the findings - if you catch yourself saying “well, half the group said they would buy...”, lie down until the impulse passes. Instead, seek to understand what triggered that decision, and how you can induce more of them.

While these are some of the common mistakes, there are many more uncommon ones that can be just as devastating to the efficacy of the results. In fact, the biggest mistake companies make is never doing focus groups at all, because they a) don't understand the value that can be added, or the insight that can be derived, or b) don't want to spend the money. This is no less foolish than the General who wants to rush to the attack because he doesn't want to take the time and energy to look at the aerial reconnaissance photos of the enemy position.

Better marketing is always achieved by those who first take the time to understand.

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Customer Service Gone Horribly Wrong

2008-05-23T22:31:03-04:00

My wife, young son and I took this afternoon off to visit the neighborhood Carmike Cinema to see the latest Indiana Jones movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It promised to be, as one reviewer said, a "rip-roaring geezer romp"! We were excited! My older son had seen the movie Wednesday at a midnight showing, but mentioned the theater had some problems and Indiana Jones did not actually begin until 1:30. That should have been a red flag.

We picked up the tickets early, to prevent having to wait in line on a busy holiday weekend. To ensure we could sit together in what was bound to be a packed theater, we arrived 20 minutes early.

There are about six registers in the theater concession area, but there was one line open for food. This in the same theater that ran out of popcorn when we saw Spiderman 3. Have you ever heard of a theater running out of popcorn - a cash cow that reportedly pads their returns with a 90% profit margin? This same theater has fired teenagers who do not upsell their secret shoppers. The people in front of us became exasperated and went on to their movie. Lost revenue. Others saw the line and never joined it. More lost revenue.

I remembered that the last time I had visited this cinema one of the urinals in the men's room had been ducttaped "out of order". Ugh. Why didn't I think of that before?

When we finally made it to the front of the line with 5 minutes to spare, the poor overworked and underappreciated teenage concessessionista spilled my son's popcorn all over the counter, cash register and floor in front of the only open window. The people behind us in line were starting to make unpleasant noises. No one was there to clean up the mess.

When we finally had our food, we moved on to the ticket taker - who was nowhere in sight! People were standing there, clutching their tickets, unsure which of the ten theaters was showing their movie. I noticed the movie names and times were listed on marquees over the doors, but was told that information was not necessarily correct. There was no one to ask.

We decided to venture into the theater that mentioned our movie and time, and hope it was the right one. Previews were playing, and they suddenly stopped dead. The theater went pitch black. A tremulous female voice asked out loud, "Is this Narnia"? Patrons were trying to sit, but could not see. Some opened their cell phones and used the display light to guide their way to empty seats.

Fed up, and losing the modicum of patience I had left at that point, I went looking for an employee. No one. No ticket agent. No manager. Only the poor beleaguered concessionista and the lady taking ticket money up front.

I went back to my seat. Previews started again, and the manager came in and announced in a loud voice that this movie was to be Indiana Jones, and anyone hoping to see Narnia needed to come with him to the right theater. Grumbling, several people left with him. Others muttered they were never again returning to this theater. I wondered who could blame them.

This time when they pointed out the fire exits, I paid attention.

The movie, thankfully, showed without interruption. When it ended, as we were leaving we saw the manager outside having a cigarette as new patrons were entering. There was still only one popcorn line open.

Across town, there is another movie theater, owned by Regal, which is a completely different experience. It shows the exact same movies. Customers pick up their tickets, move quickly and efficiently through concession and are pointed to the correct theaters with ease.

According to its web page, Carmike has 283 theaters and 2427 screens in 37 states. Monday, May 12, 2008, Carmike reported a loss of 4.3 million dollars (or .34 a share), compared with a loss of 3.7 million in the same quarter a year ago - this while their general and administrative expenses are down! (On Carmike's own website, the most recent financial information is from 2005. They update their movie listings and times, but not their financial information.)

So Carmike is reducing employee and overhead expense. But at what cost? There are two ways to go out of business: your costs can be too high - or your revenues can be too low. Let's consider this issue for a second.

What is the opportunity cost of running out of popcorn for Spiderman 3?

What is the lost revenue when someone notices one concession line is open but is twelve people deep, and he decides it's not worth the wait?

What is the lost revenue when the local newspaper reports the theater is firing teenagers for not upselling the supersizes and disgusted parents and their friends stay away?

How much revenue wil be lost when today's customers tell their friends about their Carmike experience, and those friends head to Regal for their Indy movie?

And how much revenue will be foregone when patrons decide that the convenience of this Carmike theater is not worth the slipshod maintenance, the slow, crappy service, and they drive 15 minutes across town to the cleaner, quicker Regal theater that is showing the exact same movies?

The lesson? If you think it's expensive to train employees, keep the physical property maintained, hold sufficient staffing levels, and sustain high standards of service, consider what it costs when you don't.

And think about what is happening to Carmike.

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Good Enough is NOT...

2008-05-21T09:50:25-04:00

Too often in marketing, we stop short. We do enough to get the basic job done, but before we have created something remarkable. The goal of this blog post is to make you take a look at every thing you do - at ALL of your creative output - and ask yourself two questions:

1. Is it "wallable"?
2. Does it have a wienie?

If you're not satisfied that the answer to those two questions is YES - get back to the anvil and keep pounding. There is already too much mediocrity out there; we don't need any more.

Aim to amaze. Shoot to thrill.

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New Rules of Viral Marketing

2008-05-14T15:20:39-04:00

David Meerman Scott has written an excellent E-book entitled "The New Rules of Viral Marketing."

It's available in PDF format. Download it, read it and live it. Pass it on to your friends and clients who may be interested.

Unleash the virus! It's too good to keep to yourself.

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Customer Service an Afterthought to Sales?

2008-05-14T13:32:19-04:00

Remember the old adage that a happy customer will tell one person; an unhappy one will tell 10?

Change that to "A happy customer will tell one person - an unhappy one will tell 1000."

And then it will get tweeted so that 2200 more see it.

Web 2.0 has changed forever the game of customer service. Are you taking pains to promise the moon, and then overdeliver?

Are you making sure your clients understand the stakes of screwing up now?

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Viral - Permission - Marketing

2008-05-12T10:33:45-04:00

Take a look at this video that suddenly has vaulted to the top of YouTube's "most viewed", snagging 1.4 million viewers last week - all of whom...

Clicked on the "play" button themselves- and forwarded it to friends.

This was a spot that was put together for Levis by Cutwater, the cool San Francisco advertising company that created the famous Ray-Bans video with the guy catching sunglasses on his face.

This is what Seth Godin is talking about in "Permission Marketing" - a paradigm in which we are no longer forced to sit captive while old media waste our time with ads that are neither interesting nor relevant. Instead, we willfully, even cheerfully watch ads that are provocative, fun and stimulating.

What are you doing with your marketing? Are you mired in the same old "interruption-based" media, doing the same old ads that most of the viewers ignore? Because if you are not actively dreaming up ways that you can get the permission of your customers and prospects to market to them, you just might be facing your own fight for relevance sooner rather than later.

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Perception is Reality

2008-05-09T09:27:09-04:00

We have a saying in marketing research that "Perception is Reality".

This means that in the world of marketing, perception is everything, even if it is wrong. People make purchase decisions everyday based upon what they "think" or what they "know" - which is their interpretation of the world around them, through their lens. That it may be factually incorrect is irrelevant, and may be costing YOU their business.

Which is why it is always important to test regularly the perceptions of clients and customers against the reality that you know, and bring the two into reconciliation.

But, as we can see in this video, sometimes the testing process can be a little painful.

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Marketing Research - Cool?

2008-04-28T11:36:39-04:00

As far as I know, this was the first time in recorded history anyone used the words, marketing research" and "cool" in the same sentence. There apparently is a move afoot to make marketing research "cool" within the agency world, a world that for years have given only grudging acknowledgment that research is something other than a profound pain in their creative arses.

How do you make something cool? Either it is or it isn't. "Cool" cannot be conferred by agency creatives upon research wonks anymore than college jocks can confer "cool" upon chemistry geeks. As anyone who is cool will tell you, "cool" comes from within, not without. And people who are cool absolutely never worry about being perceived that way.

And marketing research is cool.

It is absolutely cool to discover what jazzes and what frustrates buyers of your product, and then make changes that give customers more of what they like and less of what they dislike.
It is cool to hear the way your company is described in the real marketplace, and to discover relevant ways of influencing that conversation.
It is profoundly cool to hear the excitement as customers and prospects discuss a new product they believe will have a positive influence on their lives - especially if it's YOUR new product.
It is undeniably cool to provide the underpinning of understanding that agencies use to build creative that connects consumers to a product.

So if marketing research is cool, why aren't marketing researchers?

Because we bicker about which methodology is best
Because we turn simple projects into convoluted, expensive ones
Because we write about research in ways that would put an insomniac to sleep
Because we think that making marketing research abstruse makes us look smart
Because we get caught up in approaches and forget the real reason for doing marketing research is to provide insight - to help clients make informed decisions.
Because we do not build research plans to address the marketing objectives
Because we are more concerned with getting the project than in providing real value

So if we marketing researchers are ever going to make it to the exalted state of "cool" - we are going to have to do it ourselves - not wait for the Agency creatives to vouchsafe it upon us.

And we'll do it by facilitating the connection between communicators and customers better than anyone else. By providing the better understanding that leads to better marketing.

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Marketing Research is Easy - Really

2008-04-25T14:03:09-04:00

Marketing Research is simple, really.

I did my first marketing research project when I was in the 7th grade. You probably did too.

There was this terminally cute new chick named Rebecca in my class, and I knew nothing about her, other than that she made my 13 year-old knees knock together with an audible clacking. I really wanted to ask her to the school dance, so with the desperation of the painfully bereft, I went on an information quest:

I found out where she lived. Where she had gone to school before 7th grade.

Did she have a boyfriend? How big was he? Hmmm...

What were her favorite subjects? What did she do after school?

What did my friends think? Should I ask her? Was anybody else thinking of asking someone?

Who did Rebecca hang out with, and what did they think? Did she even know who I was? Would any of them run interference for me? If I paid them?

  I could have just walked up to her and mumbled an invitation, but if I was going to put my precious and meager supply of ego capital on the line, I was going to be pretty damn sure what the answer was going to be before doing it.

Welcome to the world of marketing research.

Simply and unprofessionally put (which is something researchers hardly ever do) marketing research is the process of learning as much as you possibly can about your target audience in order to reduce the risk of making decisions that will come back and bite you in the ass. Decisions that cost you ego capital. Or a lot of money.

Despite attempts by marketing researchers to make the subject so abstruse that you believe only they can understand it, most marketing research falls into one of three camps:

1. Quantitative: Broad not deep. A LOT of interviews. What detergent do you use? Whom would you vote for? Predictive.   Obama will get 48% of the vote, plus or minus 3%.

2. Qualitative: Small number of interviews. Deep not broad. NOT predictive, but connective. What does buying that detergent suggest about you as a mother? Tell me what you think will be the basic differences between an Obama presidency and a HRC presidency, and how you think that might affect you?

3. Secondary: demographic. How many people live within a mile of this location, and what is the average value of their homes?

Which of these three is the most important?

None. It depends totally on the decision and the stakes. A bank President considering a new branch location will have a different set of information needs than a tired brand looking to reconnect with customers and become relevant again. How much information do you need to become comfortable that your decision will be an informed and profitable one?

So while the basics of marketing research may be easy, what's hard is knowing where to start and when to stop. There are a million different types of projects: Political polls, advertising research, ethnographic research, new product development, and so on... Which one, or which combination, is best for you and your decision?

The trick? Finding the balance - the comfort zone on the continuum between the points of “no information at all” and way too much information”. Consider what is essential to your decision, and what falls merely into the category of “nice to know”.

Everyone thinks research (or knowledge) is important. But not everyone is willing to pay for it.

Even if your budget is nil, do something. Get out into the stores and ask questions.

Learn to ask “why”, then “why” again, just like a 5 year-old. Be endlessly curious, and don’t be afraid to look stupid. Don't assume you understand, ask. You never know what might turn out to be important. Talk to the people in your organization who speak with customers daily. Get online and look at a competitor’s website. Try to put yourself in your customer’s place - to look at your business and the purchase decision as they do.

You’ll notice that people in your organization start turning to you when they’re wondering what your customers are thinking - when they want the voice of the customer. You'll notice that you start making marketing decisions from a different perspective, one that reflects what is important to your audience as opposed to what is important to your agency.

So what happened with Rebecca? After a thorough investigation of what I thought were all the relevant questions, I finally summoned enough courage, called Rebecca and asked her to the dance. Despite my research, I was still terrified - but she said “yes”. We went and had a great time.

She dumped me later for a Lyle Alzado lookalike who was playing varsity football and shaving at the age of 14.   

Hmph. Should have done more competitor research!  

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Earth Day - How Can You Show Your Love?

2008-04-22T12:49:55-04:00

Jacquelyn Ottman is another one of my marketing heroes. When she first started preaching "Green Marketing", everyone thought she was a little touched. Now, I believe we understand better the importance of her vision of sustainability and responsible ecological practices in production, but also the importance of being "green" with respect to our marketing and advertising practices. Many companies have found out that responsible marketing practices can result in increased customer loyalty, a broader sense of community, and ultimately profitability.

Today is Earth Day, and I think it is appropriate that we take a moment to relect upon our blessings and the beauty of this planet, and think about ways we can decrease our ecological footprint and preserve the earth for future generations.

In a TwitterCall, I posed the question to my nearly 800 followers, asking what was one thing they could start doing today to honor our earth. Here is what they came up with:

And these tips are from one of the great ones: Laura Fitton, also known as Pistachio. You will see her website in my blogroll to the right.

Do what you can to commemorate Earth Day. More than that, find ways to re-cycle in your business, to use less energy, to be more efficient. Be sure you let your customers know you are leading the way, and encourage them to do the same. They will appreciate more than you know that you are making an extra effort to improve the part of the world that you touch, the world we all share.

And take the time today, and tomorrow and every day, to marvel in the beauty and blessings of our earth.

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