Matt on Marketing

Television still works

2008-03-24T10:41:00.000-07:00

The most successful marketers strip out all the pomp and circumstance too often built up around our trade, and boil what we do down to its essence – inspiring and mobilizing an audience. When you start with a basic premise of product meets consumer, the right solutions (message, channel, delivery, etc.) often come into place quite easily.

Mark Jones gets this as well as anyone, and has built a smart marketing business to prove it. I recently asked Mark to describe in greater detail his approach to successful marketing and advertising.

How has successful marketing changed since you started in the ad business?

When I started in the advertising business in 1989, television was considered THE primary advertising medium, and the Internet didn't even exist as a consumer medium. When we first started presenting Internet options to our clients in the mid 90s, it was a hard sell. Most people weren't connected or only had a slow dial-up connection (remember 1200 B.O.D., anyone?), so the online audience was too small to justify. When the web audience finally ballooned to justify the numbers, the dot-com bust burned many advertisers, and Internet was once again a hard sell. Today, we are not only recommending a strong Internet component in our campaigns, but with many target audiences web advertising and branded entertainment have replaced television as the primary medium. But calling it "the Internet" is just too vague, so we break it down into websites, e-commerce sites, online advertising, search, social networking, branded entertainment, viral, mobile, and whatever comes out tomorrow. What's great for us is that now that video plays well on the web, our television experience puts us in a leadership position on the Internet. Do you really want a web designer creating your video?

What’s been the key to making television advertising so successful for so long?

Even with the new importance of the web, television is still as powerful a branding medium as ever. The highest definition video is a television standard, not a web standard, so if you want your product to look and sound its best, television is key. There is still no better way to create a laugh, generate fear, or engage a consumer quickly. Even with broadband connections, the web pales by comparison in delivering the goods. Consumers must wait for a small video to load, followed by a tiny video that is compressed beyond recognition, and then play it through your computer speakers. Consider that most web video starts as "broadcast quality" and then gets squished and scrunched down until it is "acceptable" for the web. The web is catching up quickly though, and the lines between web and TV continue to blur. Sure the interactivity isn't there, but after being interactive all day at work, millions of people still want to veg-out in front of the TV.

What’s the key to making it successful today?

I think there's a misconception that TV audiences are shrinking. But since we don't pay if no one is watching, this really doesn't matter to us. And consider that some heavy user groups average more than six hours of TV viewing every day, any news that the thirty second ad is dead is a bit premature. So it really comes down to our target audience: if they have the TV on, we want to be there.

What makes video such a compelling medium for marketers?

The storytelling ability. Video is more than pictures, its words, movement, music, emotion. I can show a new sports car from every angle, inside and out, zoom in for a close up, cut to a wide shot, enhance it with music while you hear the throaty exhaust in surround sound. I can put you in the drivers seat or make you look on as an envious observer. I can explain that it has 300 horsepower without having to say it. That doesn't work in a skyscraper ad on a website, or a magazine ad. A picture is worth a thousand words, and video is moving at 30 pictures a second, and has words to boot.

Can you share any best practices about what makes a good DRTV spot work?

Direct response is about creating compelling demonstrations and backing them with strong testimonials. Follow this with a persuasive call-to-action that has a good product at a great price. Then, it is simply a numbers game. What was the ROI? If it works, buy more media and run it again. If it bombs, don't.

How do television best practices translate to other media – print, online, etc.?

The creative strategy should be created independent of any medium, and the concept should map directly to the creative strategy. With a solid strategy and concept, it shouldn't matter what medium you work in.

You have a five-floor elevator ride. How do you describe Jones Advertising?

We're a small advertising agency that makes a big impact for our clients. Check us out at www.jonesadvertising.com.

What does "drinkability" mean?

2008-02-07T09:34:00.000-08:00

A core part of Bud Light’s new positioning – present everywhere from billboards to their recent Super Bowl ads – is “superior drinkability.”

The idea behind this positioning is strong, that Bud Light is an easy-to-drink beer (relative to more complex, hoppy beers that may not be as smooth or easy to quaff).

But the specific wording Anheuser-Busch uses here continues to befuddle me. Drinkability is an awkward word. It implies that other beers aren’t drinkable, which is silly.

It’s also not consistent with Bud Light’s core audience, which has also been blue-collar, everyman, “Joe Six Pack” drinkers. Anheuser Busch’s ad campaigns to this day reinforce this audience focus, with slapstick humor used again and again to keep its audience’s attention.

Does the average Bud Light drinker know what “drinkability” means? Do they care? Is this phrase helping Anheuser-Busch sell beer?

I doubt it.

Seven Proven Tips for Conquering the Email Mountain

2008-02-06T08:29:00.000-08:00

While working through a particularly gnarly problem with our company’s virtual helpdesk, I was told that my email usage (measured largely by the size of my deleted items folders) is in the top 5 percent of users they see across their various clients.

This actually surprised me, in that I had always assumed that others get much more email volume than I typically do. This assumption is based on frequent observation of colleagues and friends with overloaded inboxes, sometimes with hundreds of unread emails. These colleagues talk about drowning in their email, which makes both focus and staying on top of things far more difficult.

Despite my high inbound email volume, my inbox is almost always empty. What’s more, I have peace of mind in knowing where (and how) to find anything, and have built myself an email system that allows me to tackle every email “action” in the right time.

The net result of this system is that I no longer let my email run my day. I can stay focused on what’s most important throughout the day, get to my email when I need to, and still keep the inbox clean.

How? Listed below are my top seven best practices:

(Note: These tips assume you’re using Microsoft Outlook as your email client, although some will work with Gmail and other Web email services as well).

Rules

I aggressively use Outlook’s email rules to manage my inbox. This automates much of the filing and sorting I’d otherwise have to do manually, especially when Outlook can recognize patterns and help me save certain types of emails for quick scanning or processing later. For example, I subscribe to several email newsletters, but every one is automatically filed in a “reading” folder (more on that below). I get “watched item” alerts from eBay, which also get filed in a separate folder. There are certain reports I’m copied on, which I found that I rarely read but want filed away for future reference. I have an Outlook rule that does this filing for me automatically. This tool alone saves me countless clicks and minutes every day.

Three Main Folders: For short-term processing, I typically sort the rest of my email into three folders: Action, Waiting For, and Reading.

· Action: If I receive an email that can be responded to in two minutes or less, I just tackle it right away. Any degree of procrastination on such a short-term task can literally double (or worse) the amount of time I spend on it. Anything else that takes longer than two minutes goes into the Action folder. Very, very few of these requests need immediate response. Putting them together in an “action” folder allows me to tackle them later, and all at once.

· Waiting For: I often send an email to a colleague or vendor, and wait for a response. I typically blind-copy myself on these emails, and have an Outlook rule set up so that these emails automatically get sorted into a “Waiting For” folder. This gives me a complete inventory of the outstanding emails I’ve sent for which I haven’t received a response. I’ll quickly scan this folder a few times a week, deleting emails that have been responded to, and occasionally following up with people that haven’t yet taken action.

· Reading: I get to this once a day, usually on the bus in the morning or evening. None of it is urgent, and I have no problem deleting an unread newsletter if the folder is getting too large, or if more recent emails (especially in the case of news summaries) are piling up.

I file these folders in my Outlook folders with an “@” symbol in front of them, so that they all stack up at the top of my Outlook folders list. This way they’re always in front of me for easy clicking and viewing when I’m ready.

nup.

Work in Offline Mode

Right-click the “online” tag at the bottom, right-hand corner of Outlook, and click the “work offline” link. This will essentially “freeze” your Outlook based on what emails you already have received, and will allow you to manually control when emails are sent, and when new emails come into your inbox. Any emails you write and “send” when in offline mode will be queued up in your Outbox, and will automatically be sent when you click the send/receive button (or click F9). This is a great way to stay focused on what you’re currently doing, and not get distracted by new emails coming in. Plenty of productivity experts tell their clients to turn off “new email” notifications already – get rid of the little beep, the preview pane, the “new email” graphic in the taskbar. All of those suggestions are moot if you work offline. How often you click that send/receive button is up to you. Many gurus suggest you don’t need to check your email more than 1-2 times a day. I’m more addicted to email than that, but still typically go at least 30-60 minutes between checks. This helps me stay focused on getting the right things done in the meantime.

Keep Storage Folders for Everything

I keep folders in Outlook for everything, and open new folders on a regular basis. I try to organize them in a consistent manner, and use lots of subfolders. This gets anything that no longer needs an action – that’s purely for future reference – out of sight but within reach.

Xobni

This new Outlook add-on has saved me hours of searching through email archives, and I’ve only had it for about a month. In a nutshell, Xobni is a search engine for your email, and sits on the right-hand side of your screen. It allows you to search names and keywords, pulling up associated contacts, consolidating document attachments and more. Check out this demo for a better description of the service. I’ve found it invaluable, especially if you aggressively store archived emails in folders like I do, and don’t always remember where you put everything.

Use Outlook’s PST archive folders 2-4 times a year

If you get a lot of email, and store much of it for future reference, your folders will get really big, really fast. Use Outlook’s PST archive folders to create “offline” storage tanks for long-past emails. This will clear up space (and improve performance) with your account on the Exchange Server, but keeps those old emails within reach. You can even set up rules in Outlook to automatically archive files into your PST folders after a certain # of days.

Unsubscribe!

We all end up on too many distribution and subscriber lists. If you’re unsure if you want to stay on those lists or not, simply set up an Outlook rule. But if you find you never read them, unsubscribe. It’ll be that many fewer emails in your inbox, and you can always re-subscribe if you really need it or miss it.

United Airlines did the math wrong

2008-02-06T06:12:00.000-08:00

Andy's right. The short-term napkin math on those extra baggage charges by United Airlines will pale in comparison to the customers who will simply seek another airline for their traveling needs.

This doesn't even count the soft cost of the scene about to unfold at airports across the country - angry travelers questioning ticket counter agents when they learn of this policy, public grumblings in the concourse in front of other travelers, etc.

Differentiation in the travel industry is increasingly defined by service and customer focus. Some airlines get it. Others obviously have some catching up to do.

Importance vs. Urgency

2008-01-31T16:24:00.000-08:00

What would happen if you spent less than 10% of your work time next week in quadrant III?

What if you could spend 80% of your time in quadrants I and II?

I bet your productivity, job satisfaction, work/life balance and peace of mind would improve significantly.

10 reasons why I don't like Facebook

2008-01-31T15:49:00.000-08:00

I've tried for more than a year to figure out Facebook's value in my life, and am finally ready to throw in the towel.

For many, Facebook is an obsession and a major part of their lives. It's a source of incredible entertainment and social interactivity. I take nothing away from them and their enjoyment of the service.

It's also a powerful advertising and brand-building channel, given its wide audience and deep usage patterns.

I just don't like it, and don't use it.

Here are ten reasons why.

10. It's a huge time-suck
I get dizzy just visiting my Facebook page, and I haven't even bothered adding that many friends or applications. There's so much going on, and so much to do. If I start engaging with a fraction of what I see, I've wasted long periods of time with little return. It's completely non-productive time for me.

9. It's incredibly distracting
Just as bad as email. If you want to stay active with Facebook, and have a lot of friends, you have to visit multiple times a day. It will interrupt any prolonged period of productivity or focus on something more important - either at work or elsewhere.

8. It's become non-differentiated
Everyone's doing it, exchanging the same stuff, buying each other the same $1 gifts, giving virtual high-fives and more. When everyone's doing the same things, and interacting the same way with each other, nobody's unique. Nobody's being remarkable. Facebook allows for very little individuality.

7. It's mostly irrelevant
Facebook lets me virtually "drunk dial" a friend. It lets me send them a pixel of a flower. It lets me send someone a digital sucker-punch. It's...irrelevant. Pointless. Maybe I'm too old, and apparently a curmudgeon too. But I don't get the value of these exchanges.

6. I spend enough time online for work
Time on Facebook for me is a lose-lose. I'm either wasting time at work, spending time on Facebook, or spending even more time on the computer when at home. I'm in front of the computer all day as it is, when I'm home, and not working, I want an offline experience - not more hours stuck to a screen.

5. It keeps people from getting out and talking/meeting live
I love the Web as a networking and communication tool. But as a social playground, I think it often goes too far. I'd far prefer to meet friends in the real world, which provides for a much richer, more meaningful interaction and experience. Sure, it takes more time and isn't nearly as efficient. But that misses the point.

4. It's all fake
I worry that too many of our social interactions with each other are now virtual, with very little tangible evidence or momentos. Call me old-school, but my wife and I greatly enjoy the printed photos we have of family gatherings, friends getting together, etc. Not only are they physical reminders of those good times, they're reminders of times we got together offline to enjoy each other's company.

3. It's not very meaningful
There's a quality vs. quantity exchange going on in Facebook that, in my opinion, is taking us in the wrong direction. While it's great that I can "play" with dozens of my friends at once, the quality of those interactions is greatly diminished online. The multi-faceted, rich nature of in-person interactions is completely lost. The memories and impact of those online interactions is incredibly shallow, compared to the richness of being together.

2. It's not at all inclusive
Some of my best friends are not (gasp!) obsessed with the Internet. One of my good friends doesn't even check email very often (can you imagine?!). If I'm relying on Facebook to drive my friendships and social interactions, what happens to these offline friends? Are they left out? Do they not count? Do they diminish in value or importance to me?

1. It will be over soon
I remember when we all had pages on GeoCities. Then we moved on to our blogs. Then MySpace, now Twitter and Facebook. We will move onto something else. And what will we have to show for it?

A model of customer service and operational effectiveness

2008-01-31T07:48:00.000-08:00

I hold the team at 1-800-Got-Junk in very high esteem, and their fantastic write-up in today's Wall Street Journal is a further validation of their success.

Said Jane Hodges, the "Cranky Consumer" columnist for the Journal, 1-800-Got-Junk's performance when she tested them:

"Online booking was easy; calling customer service to tweak the pick-up time was also straighforward. The job was speedy."

This is a company on the rise, with a laser-focus on customer service and an incredible operational system internally. They're devotees of Verne Harnish's Rockefeller Habits, which helps them focus the entire company on what's most important to fuel growth.

Learn more about their operational best practices here.

Congratulations guys, keep up the great work.

The Lazy Guide to Productivity

2008-01-30T06:06:00.000-08:00

Hard-working doesn't always translate to productive & successful. Sometimes, laziness is the best path to progress and achievement.

Sound contradictory? For years, productivity and executive impact experts have encouraged us to focus on what's important, not just what's urgent. No less than Peter Drucker, in The Effective Executive, was among the first to note that much of our time as knowledge workers will naturally be pulled into a variety of urgent but not necessarily important time sucks, and that only careful consideration of what's most important in our work - then focusing intently on getting those few things done - is the best path to productivity and success.

So, as Leo points out this week, focusing on just three things each day (rather than the pages and pages of to-do's that most of us carry around) can have an effect both on our productivity and our peace of mind.

Call it lazy if you want, but knowing the night before exactly what needs to get done the next day (just 2-3 important things), then focusing early in the day on getting those things done can have an incredible impact. Give it a try for a week and see what happens.

More on being productive and lazy at the same time from Leo here.

Photo Credit: The Lazy Environmentalist

Value Exchange (What are you selling?)

2008-01-29T19:32:00.000-08:00

Today Howard took on the idea, as well as the pros and cons, of free syndicated content. If a publisher offers to promote your white paper for free online, for example, there must be a catch.

That publisher may want to sell you the leads generated from that white paper later, or you may be sacrificing value and ROI from your other lead generation efforts (lower response rates and higher costs from search ads, for example) when prospects find out they can get your information elsewhere without having to register.

But depending on your objectives, that might be OK. Especially with a non-customer and prospect audience, it all comes down to value - what value are you providing, what do they have to give up (if anything) to get it, and what value do you get in exchange for getting that information or service out there.

The first part of that value equation is the simplest. If you don't produce something that others want, you've missed the entire point. Whether you sell it, give it in exchange for a registration, or simply give it away - people have to want it.

Whether or not your audience is willing to give something up (their personal information, an email address, or even money) depends on how much value you've created, and how badly they want it. Some of this is surely in how well you market your offer, but most of the value is baked into the offer itself.

Whether or not you choose to require something from your audience in exchange for that value is entirely up to your end-game. Are you publishing a white paper in order to develop thought leadership, extend awareness of your business, or build credibility for a new product? If that's the case, then you want the white paper in as many hands as possible. Registration, therefore, is probably a bad strategy.

There's no uniform answer to this value exchange. But it is important to fully understand what you want out of the exchange, and whether what you're offering can support that objective. It may not be cut and dry, but lacking clear objectives and success metrics up front will only create greater ambiguity and confusion down the road.

Hat-tip to Howard for the inspiration.

What do you do on a snow day?

2008-01-28T15:18:00.000-08:00

Today in Seattle, a thin blanket of snow and ice covered many of the streets. Local schools were closed, and driving to work was somewhat hazardous.

A year ago, similar conditions swept Seattle, and I wrote about the two-sided opportunity snow days represent for many of us.

The analogy is in obstacles to success we face every day. Sometimes it's a patch of ice between us and the office. Other times it's a new competitor. Or slow market conditions. Or bad press.

How do you react? Are these obstacles used as an excuse, or leveraged as an opportunity?

Read more here.

How a recession could stifle innovation

2008-01-26T07:52:00.000-08:00

Innovation is inherently based on taking risks. It typically requires stepping out from what's known, what's comfortable, and instead trying something that very likely could (or will) fail.

The most innovative companies in the world - 3M and Google among others - fail a LOT. They foster an environment with a fundamental understanding that failure is a part of the creative and innovation process.

How could a recession stifle innovation? By creating fear.

Fear that diverting from what's known and comfortable will accentuate the possibility of sinking profits and lost market share. Fear that failure in one's job could lead to layoffs.

Fear can cause people to simply stick to what they know, what's comfortable, what they already understand will generate success - vs. trying something completely different that could result in a breakthrough for themselves, their companies and their customers.

The mere threat of a prolonged economic downturn could cause companies to hunker down, brands to stick to what has always worked in the past (even if it doesn't work anymore), and individuals to stifle their own creativity for fear of sticking out, demonstrating less initial progress, and therefore putting their jobs at risk.

I hope I'm overthinking this, but I've seen it before. Even in the midst of robust economic conditions, companies and brands in vertical industries find themselves in chasms between growth periods, and those chasms too often foster fear, uncertainty and stagnation.

In these conditions, it can be difficult to turn fear into courage. But in our businesses and as individuals within them, that's what we need to do.

Craftsman tools at Wal-Mart?

2008-01-23T10:59:00.000-08:00

I was fascinated to read a couple days ago about the possible split between Sears and their Craftsman tool brand. According to the story, Sears may reorganize into several separate companies, which could include splitting out the Craftsman and Die-Hard brands.

For decades, Craftsman has been synonymous with Sears as a well-regarded line of tools. It's been a steady traffic-driver to a store that has lost significant market share in other departments to "new" brands such as Wal-Mart, Target and others.

I'm very curious to see how this separation will manifest itself for Sears and for the individual brands, and what it will mean to both collective and individual sales. For example:

- Will we see Craftsman tools at Wal-Mart? Will that help sales volume and/or hurt the brand image?
- Will Sears sell other brands? If so, how does that differentiate Sears from Home Depot? Will they compete on price?

Lots of possible angles here.

What do you think - is a separation between Sears and Craftsman a good thing? How will it impact each brand?

The problem with slides

2008-01-22T08:25:00.000-08:00

Yesterday afternoon, I gave a presentation with minimal slides. In fact, I used just one slide. I might as well have used too many.

Let me qualify.

I'm a fan of eliminating copy-heavy slides from presentations. Too many words, and they're reading - not listening. You might as well hand out a transcript and give them their 20 minutes back.

I've even started wondering just how important PowerPoint is to a presentation in the first place. Why not have great content, delivered in a dynamic way, without any slides, to get the point across? Isn't that what happened before PowerPoint? Didn't people simply orate in a fantastic, memorable way?

That can work. But so can good slides. Not word-filled slides, but example-filled slides.

I gave several examples of work in progress in my presentation yesterday. I talked about them, anyway.

I should have showed samples of this work in the presentation. Not words describing it on the slide, but screen grabs and snapshots of the work itself. Something to bring my words to life, make it pop for the audio and visual learners in the room.

I discussed several anecdotes and metaphorical case study examples from across the Web to prove several points. I used my words to paint a picture, when dynamic visuals of what I was describing could have been more compelling, more attention-grabbing.

I think the presentation went well, but it didn't go great. I went too far in my attempt to avoid the PowerPoint pitfalls that are all to common in corporate presentations these days.

What I learned, ironically, is essentially the same lesson - just from the other end.

Slides with too many words are a distraction. They don't help you tell a story. Presentations with no visuals can sometimes work, but visuals that augment the story, and really bring it to life, can make a good presentation great.

I'm addressing this same group again on tomorrow, and am making significant changes to my visual presentation. We'll see how it goes.

Congratulations Leo

2008-01-21T10:04:00.000-08:00

I've been a big fan of the ZenHabits blog for some time. Recently, its author fulfilled a long-held dream by quitting his day job and embarking on a career as a full-time writer.

Flip through his well-written blog and you'll see why this was a very good idea. Leo offers a refreshing voice that combines productivity and work-life balance best practices together in a highly-accessible, practical format.

I also highly-recommend his new eBook, Zen to Done. Well worth the token investment.

Capturing ideas when wet

2008-01-21T08:56:00.000-08:00

I've gotten in the habit of having pen and paper with me nearly everywhere I go, to better capture the ideas that aren't always thoughtful enough to show up when I can do something about them. When I'm mobile and writing something down isn't easy (or safe), I use Jott.com.

Neither are very helpful when exercising. Last weekend, I had a number of good ideas during a great morning run. Unfortunately, I had no way of recording them, so most were lost.

Yesterday, on the same run, I took a small digital voice recorder with me. Merely pressed a button when I had something to say or remember.

I came home with 14 short recordings, some incredibly tactical and some more long-term valuable.

I'd recommend this approach at the gym as well, especially if it's noisy enough that people won't think you're talking to yourself like a crazy person. On the contrary, they just might admire the fact that you're capturing all of the ideas that they routinely lose right back into the Stairmaster.

Still haven't figured out the shower. I think my wife would draw the line at the waterproof whiteboard...

Always On

2008-01-21T05:19:00.000-08:00

When Steve Jobs gets on stage to introduce the latest innovations from Apple, the presentation you see is very well rehearsed. Jobs and his team fully understand just how critical Jobs himself is to the Apple brand, and they correctly take that very seriously.

Apple's understanding of that brand, and the means by which they grow and cultivate its cult status, makes last week's run-in with a "casual fan" on the Macworld floor all the more perplexing. Jobs, of all people, should know that his brand isn't allowed to take a public break.

If this encounter had truly been with a random fan, the damage likely could have been contained. Unfortunately, Jobs blew off a very prominent blogger, steps away from one of the tech world's most popular bloggers who happened to have a video camera at the ready.

The result? A story well out of proportion with the news itself, but incredibly damaging to Jobs and Apple nonetheless.

Jobs has a reputation for occasional cantankerousness, which is too bad. Small moments can irreparably damage a carefully-crafted, well-considered brand. It's a good reminder for all of us - for ourselves, our employees and our own brands.

Giving Twitter a try...

2008-01-20T22:21:00.000-08:00

I'm clearly going to be quite late to the Twitter game, but here goes. Click here if you want to follow me.

My initial fear and apprehension about Twitter was purely time-based. I can see Twitter sucking up a LOT of time, without the level of ROI I would hope for.

That said, I've seen Twitter evolve into a more interesting means of active and relevant social networking, beyond the high-frequency-posting early adopters and into a group of business network associates that simply want to stay in touch, share information, and occasionally ask each other questions.

We'll see.

Outsource your reading

2008-01-19T07:52:00.000-08:00

Want to read more, but just don't have the time? Let someone else read for you!

It's not crazy. There are a number of tools, most online and many for free, where basically someone else does the "heavy lifting" of reading everything, summarizing what's most important and prescient for you.

In just a few minutes, you can read five daily newspapers.

In just four pages, you can read and entire business book.

In a single screen, you can consume a week's worth of a dozen blogs.

Don't believe me?

- Today's Papers: This feature of Slate has been around for years, but is still among my favorites. Every morning, seven days a week, a Slate staffer reads the five top daily newspapers (Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times) and then summarizes what those papers consider news for the day. The column is chock full of links to allow you to read full articles if you want. But this feature alone is the single more valuable tool I've found to keep myself abreast of national, political and world news - all in just a couple minutes each morning.

- The Wall Street Journal's Morning Brief email: Available for subscribers only, this morning email (every day except Sunday) gives a real-time, morning-of summary of what's become news since the print edition went to press the night before. Even more interesting is the bottom-half of the email, which summaries (and links to) news stories from a wide, wide variety of other publications. It's a great way to catch up on interesting news from corners of the publishing world I rarely get to personally, and it takes less than a minute to scan each day.

- ExecuBooks: For just over a dollar a week, this service offers an archive of hundreds of popular business books covering a wide range of topics, all summarized down to 3-4 pages. Most good business books are based on a handful of strong ideas, then fill pages of copy with examples, analysis, the author's further opinion, etc. There's on reason why you can't capture that one strong idea in a couple summarized pages, then move on. Each week, ExecuBooks (a feature of a service called aheadSpace) adds another new release to their library. Summaries are available in various formats for easy reading on the go, or print-outs via PDF for your commute.

- "Best of the Best" Summaries from Blogs: Many blogs feature regular "links" posts, which summaries their take on great related blogging from across the blogosphere. I regularly count on these bloggers to do the heavy-lifting and deep-reading for me, then just scan their summaries for stories I might want to read more about. Blogs in general are a great way to allow other people (with more time) to do your reading for you, but these "best of" posts are like a lightning-round. Some blogs with particularly good summaries are MicroPersuasion (for media/marketing/PR news), LifeHacker (for productivity best practices) and WiseBread (for great personal finance advice).

What have I missed? What services and tools do you count on to summarize news and important information for you? Please share your ideas and suggestions in the comments!

Marketing as theater

2008-01-18T05:46:00.000-08:00

About four years ago, a vacant lot in northeast Bellevue, Washington was turned into a new Whole Foods. This, for better or worse, was a stone's throw away from the building in which I was working at the time.

Very quickly, Whole Foods became a lunch destination almost every day. Never mind that we quickly dubbed it "whole paycheck" for it's crazy prices (sandwich and soup for $14 wasn't unusual). We went anyway.

Jackie wrote yesterday about her week-long experience at Whole Foods, and described how much of the experience is more than just shopping for groceries.

It's theater. It's fun. It's Disneyland for foodies.

Gotta tell ya, I don't go to Safeway just to "look around." But I've done that at Whole Foods.

Their sense of theater isn't just in what's actively happening around you, either. Stand at the end of their meat department and you'll know what I mean. The miles of meat, game, fish and other protein-rich delights - it's just mesmerizing to look at. Throughout the store, their sense of theater is as much in the merchandising and presentation as anything else.

For each of our businesses and brands, there's functional and theatrical potential alike. Most of us live in the functional world - our product does this, it gives you X benefit, etc.

But how do you bring that same product to life? How do you make your customers and prospects want to be closer to it - to touch it, feel it, experience it?

Whole Foods is, essentially, selling the same products and services as Safeway and a variety of other "functional" supermarkets. Yet the experience is 180-degrees different.

Why can't the same happen for you?

You've got to start somewhere

2008-01-18T05:28:00.000-08:00

For the past couple years, Advertising Age has ranked the top 150 marketing blogs from across the world. What I didn't know until this morning is that they actually rank 539 marketing blogs each year, based on a range of criteria related to the blog's estimated readership, inbound-outbound links, etc.

So, apparently, at least according to Advertising Age, this blog is currently ranked #441 in the world.

Think we can crack the top 400? Maybe I should worry about the top 440 first. Here's the immediate competition (currently ranked #440).

Not sure any of this means anything, but thank you for reading regardless. I never could have made it to 441st place without you.

In all seriousness, check out the very top of the Power 150 here. Some truly fantastic insights, served up free and daily.

How to Green Your Media Plan

2008-01-17T16:11:00.000-08:00

The folks over at Sustainable Life Media have been gracious enough to let me write about green marketing best practices from time to time. This month's column focuses on several ways to make your media campaigns more environmentally-friendly, from start to finish.

Special thanks to Mark Jones and Hydrogen Advertising for their help with this.

Next month I'll tackle the idea of green product labels, and how the opportunity to align your products with a demanding "green" consumer is a double-edged sword.

"Good Green" with William Brent

2008-01-17T08:30:00.000-08:00

The perils of misleading consumers into thinking your product or service is green (when it's not) are well-documented. It seems the rise in popularity of green products and environmentally-friendly marketing has been paralleled with growing consumer skepticism, and a distrust of green claims by mainstream and emerging companies alike.

Navigating that minefield is no easy task, but William Brent appears up for the challenge. Brent is senior vice president of Weber Shandwick's CleanTech practice, based in Seattle, where he manages a portfolio of clients focused on lessening the impact we have on the world around us.

I asked William to talk about green marketing, what it really means, and what lessons we've learned so far about how to do it well.

How would you define “green marketing?”
It depends how you mean it. The most literal interpretation would be as greening the processes of your company’s marketing activities, such as making your direct mail more green (i.e. using recycled paper products, or reducing the size of marketing collateral to use less resources). Or doing a calculation on how much electricity your online ads use and offsetting them.

The other, probably more generally understood way to look at it would be - to put a green spin on your products when marketing them. But that’s a recipe for disaster if your products aren’t actually green. The worst thing a marketer can do is push a product as green when its not.

Ultimately, just as with any marketing, your position has to be defensible and your business and products have to deliver on whatever you’re promising. It’s not reinventing the wheel and many of the general rules of marketing apply.

How do green marketing strategies differ from traditional marketing? What's its value, and how do you measure it?
I would argue that the strategies don’t differ considerably. Because its an area that tends to bring out strong emotional responses, and therefore increased scrutiny, the only area of strategy that’s different, if you can call it that, is the need to be even more sure that you have thought through the entire supply chain/life cycle of the product and your business.

So in that sense, your marketing has to be reflected in your overall business operational processes, which makes green marketing different because it has to be fundamentally aligned to business practices.

How would you describe consumer interest in sustainability right now? Have consumers, in general, moved from awareness to action? If not, what will drive that?
There is a palette of green in the consumer world. You have the “dark green” consumer, all the way to the “light green” consumer, and every shade in between.

You also have the “green curious”, who are still not quite green but interested in learning. Awareness is growing across the spectrum, but there has been a lack of good information about how consumers can easily do something meaningful and not disrupt their lives too much.

Gratefully there are a lot of things that consumers can do today that have a big impact but don’t cause huge behavioral changes (the kiss of death). In part I think there is a generational gap and geographical gap when talking about drivers. I see a lot of bottom up change when it comes to generations. Kids influencing their parents, and parents in turn influencing their parents.

Then there’s the usual dynamic of the two coasts leading, and then acting as a vice grip that squeezes the central part of the country. Ultimately, the recipe for success to create consumer action is providing monetary value (cost savings) without an increase in cost and without requiring a too fundamental change in behavior.

Can brands execute green marketing without making sustainable changes to their products and business practices, and get away with it?
Nope. Certainly, not beyond the short-term.

It wouldn’t look very good if a forestry company was reducing its internal paper use, or putting solar panels on the roof of its headquarters while still clear-cutting old growth forest. As someone worked or lived in China for 15 years, I still love to bring out the occasional idiom. As the Chinese say, a butcher does not want to be caught “Hanging a lamb’s head but selling dog meat”.

A new client comes to you and wants to “green” their marketing. What do you recommend?
First, if you haven’t done an audit on your corporate marketing practices and identified ways to make them more green, I would recommend doing that.

Second, if you want to market brand, product, service or whatever as green, make sure they live up to the hype. If they don’t meet an acceptable level on the green meter, and you’re serious, you will have to retool, in which case you are not talking about marketing, but operation and then it’s the CEO/COO, not the CMO. Having a reputable third party to assist in this transition is critical for success, both internally and externally.

Xobni is an email killer app

2008-01-16T13:50:00.001-08:00

I've been a Xobni beta user for just a week, but the new service has already saved me a considerable amount of time, and accelerated my productivity.

In a nutshell, it's a social networking tool and search engine specifically for your email. Based on seven days of use, the best feature by far is its ability to extract every attachment from individual email contacts into a simple sidebar.

Ever search aimlessly through archives and folders in Outlook, looking for a particular document draft, report or other attachment? With Xobni, those searches no longer exist.

I waited a couple months to be invited as a beta user, but you can sign up to join Xobni as well here.

Big goals and little goals

2008-01-16T12:18:00.000-08:00

I've set a goal of drinking eight glasses of water a day. Most days I don't quite get there, but instead end up somewhere between 4-6 glasses. But that's a lot more than I averaged last year.

I've also set a goal of reading through the entire Wall Street Journal every day. Most days I don't quite get there, or just skip over certain sections, or some days don't have time to read it at all. But by setting the goal, I'm reading the Journal far more frequently and deeply than I have in the past.

My point is this. Big, audacious goals don't really mean much unless you can break them down into meaningful, actionable, accessible, "little" goals.

This year, I have set goals of reaching and maintaining an ideal body weight, and running a marathon. There are several micro-habits I've chosen to help me achieve each, and drinking more water is one of them.

I also have specific but very aggressive professional goals for this year. Encouraging myself to do the little things, like more consistent reading of key publications, will help me get there.

What's your audacious goal this year, and what are the "little things" you're committed to to get there?

Unleashing your fast-growth company

2008-01-15T05:46:00.000-08:00

If you asked me to boil down two keys to a successful company, it would be discipline and communication. Each of these functions have multiple applications, but the successful leverage of each is critical to creating and maintaining momentum and growth in any business.

Few people understand this better than Verne Harnish, author of Mastering the Rockefeller Habits and coach to some of the nation's fastest-growth companies. His book, seminars and coaching tools help companies narrow in on the few, critically important things that will fuel exponential growth, empowering those companies with a set of operational tools to achieve success.

If you're new to the Rockefeller Habits, start with my interview with Verne below. If you're thirsty for more, check out his Web site and read the book. Well worth the investment.

You have a 20-second elevator ride to describe The Rockefeller Habits. What are they?
A set of ageless disciplines for keeping everyone aligned, informed, and focused in growing a business. The results of using the habits are dramatic increases in revenue, profit, valuation, while decreasing the time it takes to manage the business so a leader can do more market facing activities.

What do successful, fast-growth companies have in common?
The right people in all functional areas; a focused and differentiated strategy, with a way to block competitors; a disciplined and mistake-free execution process; and they don’t run out of cash!!

Why do many fast-growth companies stall in the middle of the hockey stick?
The business, industry, and/or market outgrows the executives running the business – they simply fail to “keep up” via learning and coaching – the best, including the likes of Goldman Sachs executives, receive extensive education and coaching.

How much of success is about execution, vs. strategy & opportunity? Will the right strategy direct itself, or do executives need to focus on tactics as well?
The right strategy can make up for average people and sloppy execution – and if that strategy also has a “catalytic mechanism” as Jim Collins describes in his Harvard Business Review article, then, yes, the strategy will direct itself in a way

You talk a lot about communication and meeting rhythm. Why is that so important?
If you want to move faster, you have to pulse faster. An effective daily meeting rhythm facilitates quicker learning and response. And as human beings, we need talk time to more fully engage our grey matter.

Who else has inspired you as a management guru?
Just look at the extensive faculty we’ve hosted for our Summits – its why we host them – it takes a village of gurus to educate executives of growth firms – Jim Collins, Seth Godin, Geoffrey Moore, Fred Reichheld, Robert Cialdini, Pat Lencioni, Neil Rackham, Jack Stack, Bob Bloom, Jim Gilmore, etc.

In addition to your book, what should fast-growth company executives be reading?
I have a top list of books, listed by function, on our My Gazelles section of our website – www.gazelles.com – and there are a half dozen key articles listed as well.