In a recent article, I talked about the shifting roles of sales and marketing in Enterprise 2.0: marketing is increasingly taking on tasks historically performed by sales. As a result, I see many marketers focused on tactical marketing and they seem to have forgotten one of the cornerstones of effective marketing: messaging. A typical comment I hear: “we will do it later, we need to deliver leads for the sales team now”.
The trouble is that when messaging is not delivered by marketing, it will still be delivered - by the sales team. To use a military analogy: Messaging is the air cover provided by the air force before the marines’ invasion of a beachhead. If the air cover is not provided to soften the beachhead, the marines will have to do it – using hand grenades. Not a pretty sight….
Speaking of messaging and military strategy, I recently watched the movie “Flags of our fathers” which was shot back to back with Oscar winner “letters from Iwo Jima”. “Flags” depicts the trials of the Iwo Jima flag bearers who came back to the US to help the FDR administration with its 7th war bonds fund raising. Both movies are excellent and I highly recommend them – but I am transgressing…
I was particularly inspired by the war bond campaign. It was (and still is) the largest and most successful borrowing from the American public in history at $26B. To put that amount in perspective the total US budget in 1946 was $56B. Some pundits argue that this is one of most successful campaigns ever.
A key factor in the success of the campaign was the powerful messaging – embodied in the famous photo of the Iwo Jima flag-raising. While messaging may not have been a marketing concept in 1946, its central importance was crucial in the execution of the campaign. As I dissected the ingredients that made the war bond campaign a great success, I put together my “Guy Kawasaki‘sh” top rules for campaign messaging:
Rule #1: Start with what the people want. In Feb 1946, Roosevelt picked up a copy of The New York Times. "There it is again!" he thought as he eyed the photo of the flag raising. He was amazed how many times the newspapers were reprinting the AP newsphoto. Then the idea hit him. He called his secretary of the treasury: "Hank, I've got it. I've got the symbol, the theme for the Seventh Bond Tour. It's the flag raising picture. People love it. FDR understood deeply why the photo was so popular with Americans. It represented victory and the end of war. His genius is that he was able to tap into this powerful yearning and connect it with the war fund raising effort.
A company I recently worked with told me that their campaign message was:” we offer the best open source….”. This may be a good mission statement but it is not an effective campaign message. As a general rule, avoid the word “we” in campaign messaging.
Rule #2: Get the executives involved – Roosevelt had a lot on his mind in 1946 with a war being waged in the pacific and the remnants of a war in Europe. Yet he obviously had been thinking about the message of the campaign when he said: ”I’ve got it, I’ve got the symbol”.
If Roosevelt can spare time to get involved in messaging, surely the company’s executives can. Get them involved in the process. It is that important!
Rule #3: Make it a mantra. During the first two months of the seventh bond tour, everyone in America would see the flag bearer’s picture anywhere they went. You couldn't avoid it. It hung in:
1,000,000 Retail Store windows
16,000 Movie Theaters
15,000 Banks
200,000 Factories
30,000 Railroad Stations
5,000 Large Billboards
Furthermore, The message was also aired on thousands of radio commercials. While the medium and location may have changed, the message was the same. Consistency is key to successful messaging!
Too often companies keep changing their messages – often because they believe the messaging is not working, or because the company – not the customers - got tired of it. Messaging needs both volume and time to work.
Rule # 4. KISS or Keep it simple, stupid. (Incidentally, it was another democratic president – Bill Clinton – who used a famously related expression in his successful 1992 campaign: “It’s the economy stupid”). The text used in the war bonds posters was simple: “Now All Together”. No mention of the bonds interest rates. No mention of the amount needed to wage the war. None of that. It was not needed: The photo was the message and it was worth a thousand words!
Here is an example of a simple yet very effective message used by Dell: “Purely you!”. Very short but powerfully conveys what Dell is all about.
Rule #5: Make it emotional. Rosenthal, the photographer who took the picture was asked to explain why his picture touched a national nerve. “What we do in war, the cruelty is almost incomprehensible” he says. “But somehow we need to make sense of it. The right picture can win or lose a war. I took a lot of other pictures that day, but none of them made a difference. Looking at it (the picture), you could believe the sacrifice was not a waste”.
Rule #6. Don’t let details get in the way of a good story. Rosenthal’s photo actually captured the second flag-raising event of the day. A US flag was first raised earlier in the morning. However this flag was too small to be seen easily from the nearby landing beaches. Therefore a larger flag was raised the second time and Rosenthal captured that moment in the photo. Rosenthal was accused of having staged the picture or covering up the first flag raising. Of course, none of those details made a difference in the fund raising effort. The photo captured a great moment in history and the American people did not want to hear any of the controversy.
Translated: don’t let the fine print or the lawyers get in the way of a great marketing message.
Those rules worked back then and resulted in arguably one of the most successful campaigns of all times. They work equally well today. For those readers who are thinking – come on, software marketers have written the book on marketing and have nothing to learn from politicians. I say – hogwash – politicians have written all the books when it comes to marketing. They have been selling the same – repackaged – goods for years. And that, not even the software industry marketers could pull off!
Posted by: Antony Awaida
, a title which (while somewhat bold) is at least partially justified. It's a fresh, unique and thought-provoking book that manages to touch the heart in very real ways 
, Malcolm Gladwell presents his findings on why some people achieve in statistically outlying ways. Malcolm Gladwell has performed a broad reaching study aiming to find what makes people who are extremely successful different. As usual he’s done a pretty good job at presenting some of his findings with a good mix of anecdotes and facts. 
