This is one of the questions posed by Laura McLellan of Gartner Inc. on her March 26^th webcast, “Why digital marketing is underfunded.” As par of the discussion, she poled the audience of marketers to choose from the following choices:

Which of these activities would most help to justify additional spending on digital marketing in your organization?

1. Better overall digital marketing metrics
2. Proof digital marketing shortens the sales cycle
3. Decision to decrease traditional advertising expenses
4. Customer buying habits shift to more on-line commerce
5. Analysis shows you significantly lag competitors’ efforts

The top choice in the session I attended was #2, proof that it shortens the sales cycle. Laura disclosed that the top choice with an audience earlier in the day was #1, better overall digital marketing metrics.

I was surprised. In my opinion, both of these responses put an undue burden on digital marketing. Marketers have long spent their money on other channels without even a sliver of the metrics that can be easily obtained for digital marketing.

Don’t get me wrong, metrics are critical, but a more fundamental question is to ask, “where are my prospects spending their time during their buying cycle?” If your answer is like mine, and your customers are spending more time online, then the answer to Laura’s poll has to be “customer buying habits shift to more on-line commerce.”

Many small businesses or individuals try to be too many things for too many people. Whether it’s marketing or running their business, they seem to lack the necessary focus to achieve the results they’re looking for.

My advice is to do fewer activities but do them well. Imagine a thousand points of light: They’re pretty, but don’t really make any impact.  Now imagine if you focused all that light into one powerful laser. Wow! You can blowup planets with that kind of power.

Focused energy is the best way to get results.  And if you get off track just remember these three words: Pwew! Pwew! Pwew!

A new article by @deantak: Steve Jobs wanted to make a car to take on Detroit http://t.co/famA84m5 , reminds me of how out of date the information consoles are in cars. On a recent car search I encountered clunky dials and calculator-like button pads to control the screens. I almost felt peer pressure to wear acid-wash jeans to fit in with the 80s software interface.

A better option would be to leave the console to consumer electronics makers. The root of the problem is that cars are designed on 5 year cycles, where consumer electronics change in less than a year. Instead car companies should design dashboards to hold tablets, much like they design the roofs to interface with racks for bikes, skiis and the like. They could add software APIs for added integration.

One catch for car companies is that they will no longer be able to sell their console packages for $1000s. Still, it makes sense for them to seize this opportunity before new players (apple?) emerge to profit from their inefficiency. No matter who ends up selling the services, its not much of a leap to imagine downloading a Camry app to your connected iPad.

If you want to learn how to get your message out, watch Clint Eastwood’s 12 minute speech at the Republican convention where he holds a discussion with an empty chair standing in for President Obama. You won’t be alone. For millions of people, it will be the only time they tuned into the convention. I’m in Hong Kong today and Eastwood is the talk of the town.

Eastwood, the GOP’s new Great Communicator

One of the better books I’ve read on communicating, Made to Stick by brothers Chip and Dan Heath, offers a framework for understanding why. They argue that sticky messages contain as many of the following as possible: simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional stories (a.k.a SUCCESs). In this case:

SIMPLE: The headline is that for Romney to win, he has to beat Obama. Eastwood tackles the issue head-on without using political jargon to obfuscate the message.

UNEXPECTED: Here is the brilliance, and why we are paying attention. The rest of the event followed a predictable script. Was anyone surprised Romney accepted the nomination and is proposing Republican policies. Why pay attention?

CONCRETE: Using the chair as a prop was incredibly tangible. And memorable.

CREDIBLE: Eastwood’s credibility comes not only from being a world renown celebrity but also as an ex-politician himself, and for his Chrysler commercial that galvanized America. Admittedly, his credibility is a bit shaky given that he came off somewhat befuddled.

EMOTIONAL: The speech was not a list of empty statistics but engaged us through a personal dialogue. Unfortunately, most of us are left caring more about the stunt than his message than acting on Obama’s shortcomings.

STORY: Holding a faux conversation with the President is an anecdote that can be easily retold compared to 12 minutes of policy. Marco Rubio is being hailed as the future of the GOP after delivering a successful speech, but what did you take away from his message?

Clearly, Eastwood’s speech stuck. But it is also problematic for the GOP. It took the limelight away from Romney and certainly trumped his attempt to come off as more personal.

Looking to the future, I expect that we’ll see more unexpected performances at political conventions in the future. However, they’ll be used at the beginning of the convention to drawn attention to the candidate’s speech.

p.s. Eastwood set up a great analogy to argue the US presidency is “vacant,” if only to have left the message incomplete and incredulous. A bold move for Romney would be to run with the “empty chair” image as an anchor for his platform, fill in the analogy with his message about Obama’s lack of results, and pivot off of, yawn, “we built it.”

How many times have you gone to an event and given the sponsors a cold shoulder? The San Francisco Street Food Festival brings local food vendors together every summer to celebrate food and the entrepreneurs behind their creations. It supports La Cocina, “a non-profit incubator kitchen that provides affordable commercial kitchen space and industry-specific technical assistance to low-income and immigrant entrepreneurs who are launching, growing and formalizing food businesses.” Several corporate sponsors got entrepreneurial and found novel ways to connect.

Samsung

Easily my favorite example, Samsung had a booth to promote its Galaxy mobile phone. How many of you iPhone users have actually tried using another vendor’s smart phone? Using ice cream to tempt the attendant foodies, Samsung got folks hands on by making them attend a quick demo and use the phone to select their flavor. (Mango was delicious)

At Samsung mobile, the “i” phone stands for ice cream

Zagat

Google’s Zagat team took their product to the streets, and set up a booth where festival goers could upload their reviews on the spot. It was a great way to build relationships with these self-declared food experts and “influence the influencers.”

A taste of Zagat’s booth

WholeFoods

Meanwhile, WholeFoods drove home its message that it is a part of local communities. They were off to a god start simply by being at the event, and then sponsoring the attendance of a handful of local entrepreneurs. WholeFoods then engaged their neighbors in a number of activities including taking their photos and having them pin the pics to their neighborhood on a large map of the city.

The 1000 faces of WholeFoods

p.s. The La Cocina folks did a great job putting on the event and fundraising.

La Cocina volunteers raising funds

However, they missed a great marketing opportunity to showcase their headquarters and reinforce their presence in the community, instead using it as a staging ground for festival trash collection.

La Cocina HQ

p.p.s: A quick shout out to the ladies of Peas of Mind. Great brand support using the classic car to get people’s attention and support their slogan “reinventing the classics.”

Peas of Mind “Reinventing the classics”

Think about the last time you received an offer letter from an employer. What tone did it set for your relationship with the organization? A cozy embrace of limited liability? What did it say about their brand?

A company’s brand is so much more than advertising and external marketing to customers. Branding includes everything from product quality, customer reviews (increasingly visible online), and generally any employee interaction with someone from outside the company.

And branding matters. A company’s brand is the tangible value of its reputation. Its the value you are left with when you remove cash and other assets and liabilities.

Getting back to offer letters, this is a great opportunity to reinforce your brand, and culture too. Here is a thoughtful example from San Francisco-based Trulia, a company based on connecting people. They sent the following note along with a box of Dean & Deluca treats to sweeten their offer:

Thank you for taking the time to meet with us. We look forward to making you a part of our team. All the best, Trulia

Trulia welcome letter and treats

Gord put me onto this hilarious marketing video (caution, contains foul language) for the Church Street Gym in New York. In it, trainer Eric Kelly dogs his pitiable clients to their face, “I bet someone gave you a wedgy on your way here.” He says what I’m sure every gym trainer in the world having a bad day dreams of saying to their clients. He lands verbal punches fast and furious: “you look like all the nerds just had a convention on your body.” As a marketing asset, it is even more contrarian when you find out his clients are wall street bankers, some of the world’s wealthiest and powerful people, a class of folks used to pampering and deference. Is this crazy or genius marketing?!

Some of my favorite recent marketing campaigns prove that this strategy of embracing a harsh reality can be a real winner.  Take Chrysler. Detroit rose and fell with the US car industry. And for the past several decades as US-based car makers have lost market share, Detroit has seen over a 1 million denizens pick up and leave. It became the butt end of jokes, and synonymous with decay. Chrysler, however, embraced its rugged image and quickly differentiated its brand in a cluttered market. As Eminem says in this commercial, “this is the motor city, and this is what we do.” With over 15 million views for this video to date, the numbers attest to the campaign’s success.

Likewise, Domino created the turnaround campaign to respond to negative feedback about the taste of its product. Rather than hide from the problem, their marketing campaign addresses the issue head on. Along the way the campaign makes taste a buying criteria in the value segment of the market where price is king.

So yeah, maybe Church Street gym is onto something. Their wall street banker clients are looking for something rugged and authentic. They go to the gym looking to take a few hits; in and out of the ring. The typical gym pampering is exactly what they are seeking to avoid.

Done well this type of marketing strategy can intentionally create a chasm between a company’s out of touch past and a promising future. Who else needs a shake up?

Things are not going well for RIM’s Blackberry brand. They are losing the battle for consumer dollars. Its time to step away from trying to be everything to everyone and get back to their roots as an enterprise solution.  Today’s CIOs need technology that allows them to take control of all the data on their employees’ mobile devices. I see a security hardened mobile solution and a new campaign: “We’re all business.”

Who do you see running a campaign embracing a harsh reality? Yahoo! anyone?

Canada is doing away with the penny, stamping its last one-cent coin in May. It costs considerably more to make than it’s worth. If you are like me, its demise fits with your plans. When I can, I use plastic instead of cash. Increasingly, I use my phone instead of plastic.

For example, I recently made a last minute stop into Le Beau, my San Francisco corner store, and used LevelUp to buy grapefruit juice and lunch supplies. A wallet is one less thing to carry.

A digital wallet also has conveniences that money can’t buy.  I used PayByPhone the other day to pay my parking meter. The mobile app notified me that the meter was running out and allowed me to top it up without stepping away from brunch and my flight of maple-glazed bacon. The city of Vancouver has a similar phone-based system, though you are required to call a number.

Dialing for dollars to park in Vancouver.

Mobile payments also make it convenient (and affordable for the government) to continue breaking down prices by the cent, nickel, dime or quarter. Long live the penny.

The VW teaser ad, is part of a larger campaign where you can go to their website and create your own Super Bowl invitation.  Pretty nifty.

The second ad, is a 10 second potential “Ferris Bueller 2″ ad, for a yet unnamed sponsor. The social networks have been a buzz with guessing on who the sponsor is.  Since there is no scheduled Ferris Bueller 2″ movie in production according to Matthew Broderick’s IMDB page, some sponsor paid enticed Matthew Broderick to appear in their spot.  I really, hope the ad winds up being cool and not him blowing off work for a day to drive around in a new Honda. Nothing would make me feel older than seeing him downgrading from a vintage Ferrari to a minivan.

With the lines blurring between TV and Internet, when will the actual ads for the Superbowl start becoming irrelevant? The teasers are likely generating more results than the TV ads in terms of web hits, so why spend the big bucks when a great YouTube campaign gets better results?

Maybe campaigns are now front-end loaded where the TV spot is the end point.  Either way, sponsors don’t care as long as the result is positive.

Happy Super Bowl everyone.

The mattress industry has a secret they aren’t hiding under the bed.

Manufacturers like Sealy, Serta and others provide retail chains with unique product lines. As a result, retailers like Sleep Train, Mattress Discounters, Mancini’s Sleepworld, and department stores can sidestep low price seeking consumers who want to compare prices for a specific model across sellers. This is standard practice in the mattress world. What is surprising to me is how uncommon this practice is in other segments of retail. That may be about to change.

Mobile phone apps like Amazon’s Price Check and eBay’s RedLaser applications now allow consumers to easily scan a barcode while shopping and compare prices with online vendors. The popularity of these apps – over 16 million people have downloaded RedLaser – and the resultant increase in pricing transparency may finally cause other segments of retail to start selling more exclusive products … and stop hiding under the covers.

There is a broader lesson here too. Big and small business owners alike can learn a lot from looking beyond their immediate competitors, and even their industry. Here are a few more examples.

For cart-based restaurants, no congestion ahead

I was eating my shrimp dumplings the other day and got to wondering why dim sum is the only cuisine where wait staff use carts to bring most of the food to your table. There are a few exceptions. Meat is brought to tables on skewers at Brazilian churrascarias, and restaurants occasionally have a special dish they make in front of their customers, like Caesar salads, crepes Suzette and bananas flambé. However, there is clearly room for further innovation. Converting a buffet to a cart-based dinner strikes me as particularly low hanging fruit.

Rug stores, on the other hand, are always having “going out of business” sales that last for years, and maybe indefinitely? Surely other segments of retail would benefit from instilling a sense of urgency in their customers.

To experience a successful example of innovation as a result of looking across main street jump on Twitter and find your nearest food truck. The business model of the lowly taco truck has inspired a rapidly growing industry. Food trucks now proffer all of the world’s cuisines, and many of them have gone up market engendering a much broader customer base.

Imitation is said to be the highest form of flattery, but it may also be lucrative.