Wear Yourself Out

Wear Yourself Out Moves and Renames

2007-12-22T06:38:00.001-06:00

This is the last post of Wear Yourself Out.

I've moved my blog to www.consequentialvalues.com so I could have more flexibility with my graphical interface. There's much to be done to Consequential Values to get it as spruced up as I want it, but you will find it easier to navigate immediately.

Pastoral Marketing, Part 3 is at Consequential Values.

You can also get to Consequential Values using addresses www.davidpleach.com and www.pastoralmarketing.com.

Please follow me over there and invite your friends.

Thanks.

Pastoral Marketing, Part 2

2007-12-20T09:54:00.002-06:00

The marketplace needs a little Pastoral Marketing: marketing that occasionally looks at the human condition and offers something that does more than promise, but actually offers a solution to a real need. This business is incredibly tricky. For a business to look past what the consumer thinks they need to what they really need, it has to search its own soul in the process. (We probably know what this fellow will buy and how to appeal to him. But how do we engage him to buy what he really needs?)

And that’s just one hurdle. The next big hurdle is knowing that whatever it is you offer may only engage a small percentage of the target audience because most solutions to real needs mean that human consumers must take some action themselves. Real solutions to real problems don’t come to passive recipients. We will usually have to do something ourselves to experience progress.

I can give you a book, but it’s of no use to you until you read it.
I can give you a ticket to an anti-death penalty concert, but you would have to attend it to hear the message.
I can give you a seat at an immigration forum, but I can’t drive you there and I can’t open your mind.
I can give you the food, but I can’t make you feed a homeless person.
I can give you a fish, but unless you allow me to teach you to how to fish, can you improve your life?

What I think should be celebrated are the companies that take the risk;

who put in motion a program, promotion, service, or offer that looks at people “pastorally”;
who look under the surface of the consumer and their obvious wants to address their real needs;
who aren’t content to grab the low hanging fruit of consumer feelings but who look inside and remind themselves that all of mankind is partly held together by what hurts.

Let’s celebrate the imaginative and caring business people who find creative ways to give something of consequence to the consumer or to humanity at large—that will really make a difference, not just change a feeling.

Pastoral Marketing, Part 1

2007-12-19T16:29:00.001-06:00

Marketers love it when the lines between feelings, perceptions, needs, wants, and reality are all fuzzy.

Conventional marketing strategies address “perceived” rather than “real” need. “Perception is reality,” so marketers sell their wares to people’s perceptions—reality be damned. If I as a marketer can sell you the next beauty aid that will make you feel pretty or the next hot car that makes you feel as though others will think you are rich or powerful, I have succeeded. Never mind that my lip gloss isn’t going to cure your homeliness and all the leather interior in Corinth can’t fix the reality of your negative balance sheet. Buy, Baby, buy! And we will.

Making matters worse, we Americans think we feel better when we have upended Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. I may NEED safety, but promise me cool technology that will self-actualize me (at half price), and we’re there, Baby!

America is steadily becoming a place where only non-profit organizations and doctors are straight-forwardly addressing needs.

Parents too often salve feelings rather than help children navigate the tough juxtaposition of their real talents and efforts with the real world they will inevitably enter.
Even churches. During our tough times, we want our churches and preachers to be about truth, too, but until we face that excruciating moment in our lives we’ll line the pockets of preachers who ever-so-cheerfully help us be our best selves (and then we’ll complain that their rich).

Marketers, even religious marketers, appeal to our lowest common denominator—read this slowly--our perceptions of our feelings about what we think we need to feel better.

Reality be damned.

More Sleep Kit

2007-12-18T23:58:00.000-06:00

I caught a lot of ribbing about my attention to Crown Plaza's sleep aid kit. But I'm telling you, it's the real deal. It beats the heck out of the $5 bottled water they put in these places.

Last night I stayed at a very modestly priced Crown Plaza in the Los Angeles area, Fullerton to be exact. And guess what? Another sleep aid kit! So here's the picture. Note the eye mask, ear plugs, CD and liner notes (I was wrong about the 16-page booklet...but still...). And, of course, there was a drape clip.

The slug lines on the CD? "Other hotels just give you a bed...We give you real support." Their money is where their mouth is.

I don't know about you, but in my world sleep is a necessary as food, shelter, and feeling loved. I appreciate the extra attention. I canceled accommodations at another hotel, and am staying here another night. And I'm standing by my original CV score.

Tonight, however, I'm getting my butt out of bed to adjust the thermostat. That was my own ^&!%&! fault.

McDonalds Needs to Take It to the Next Level

2007-12-13T18:39:00.000-06:00

Far be it from me to tell the most successful restaurant in the history of man how to do its business...but I do think they are missing an important opportunity to spread the message of the charity closest to its heart--Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC).

Corporate charities rarely integrate their fund raising, marketing, and public awareness initiatives with the public life of their corporate parents. I think this is tragic. What this often means is exactly what happens with McDonald's--the closest the average customer ever gets to this remarkable charity is the loose change donation box sitting next to the cash registers at McDonald's restaurants. (Did you know there are actually three different Ronald McDonald House divisions?)

The "reason" is probably logistical: the charity foundation is probably not headquartered near the hamburger headquarters; the marketing groups are on separate planets; blah, blah, blah.

If McDonald's (the hamburger people) really wanted to impact the public on behalf of McDonald's (the charity) they would find a way to engage their everyday customers. Instead of asking for spare change, try this:

Offer a promotion tied to new food ideas: for every McRib you buy, McDonald's donates 50 cents to RMHC
Promote with an up-sell: buy an Extra Large Meal and McDonald's donates...
Place RMHC info in Happy Meals (coloring book?). Educate the next generation of donors.
Ask customers to bring in donations (monetary or other tangible gifts) to receive free food.
Sell a custom book or magazine on-site that tells about RMHC and the proceeds go to the charity directly.
Run an internet promotion that sends people to the restaurant or vice versa.

These techniques engage your consumer and land consequential value. The customer invests in the brand, they buy more than they normally would, they know they have contributed to the charity, they know RMHC will benefit, they might even learn about RMHC in a way that might cause them to write big checks or volunteer. The consumer AND the children benefiting from the charity both experience something of real value.

Hey, McDonald's! Quit relying on heart-rending commercials and sympathy jars. Engage us. We are up for it.

Coffee in the Library

2007-12-12T06:51:00.000-06:00

In Franklin, Tennessee Centennial High School has opened a coffee shop inside the library. The students run it. Unlike the restrictive libraries from my era, these kids actually get to drink and read simultaneously if they want to. The nerve.

Of course health advocates aren't that thrilled that the administrations of such schools are jamming caffeine and crumpets down already undernourished kids' throats. But school libraries, who are mimicking the bookstores, are winning customers by the droves. After umpteen paragraphs on Centennial HS in The Tennessean debating (primarily) the cons of the coffee shops, they printed this paragraph about a similar set up in Houston:

John Witmer, who has run a before-school cafe at Hastings High School in Houston since 2003, said it is extremely popular with the 2,800 students. Before the coffeehouse opened, "they were running about 6,000 visits per year to the library and checking out about 3,000 books," he said. Now, "we're running about 65,000 visits and checking out about 45,000 books."

Now THAT is value that makes a significant difference--a boost of more than 10 times the visits and checkouts. Brand Library's offering to students exposed them to the most important room in the school, and at the same time gave the business students who run the shops some valuable experience. Who knows how many new worlds these java ingesting youth have discovered since discovering their library? CV Score: 15 (Note that in deference to the nutritionists of the world, I left gave Physical Impact a zero.)

Before you eBay...CMarket

2007-12-11T11:42:00.000-06:00

If you use eBay to acquire stuff, you may want to look at cMarket as an alternative. At cMarket you can find many of the same products you'd find on eBay, except that the products on cMarket have all been donated to various charities. So you'll not find computer parts, but you WILL find many one-of-a-kind celebrity autographed products, exotic travel deals, sports memorabilia, personal services, and home theater systems.

And the cool part is, by bidding for good you'll add value to at least one someone's life through the charity that placed the item up for auction. The cMarket website says it has helped charitable organizations from around the country raise $30 million with 3000 auctions so far.

In addition to buying, why not turn on your favorite charity to cMarket? Or if you are part of a for-profit company, why not involve your company in cMarket by offering your products or services or buy aligning your people to the cMarket opportunity to help others?

BTW, this rare autographed framed poster of Carlos Santana from his 1995 tour in support of "Dance of the Serpent Rainbow" (being auctioned by the Nashville YWCA) just went out of my range at $300. Hurry, the sale goes off Wednesday morning early.

The Easy Button Makes it Easy to Do Something Good

2007-12-10T07:14:00.000-06:00

Aside from the fact that Staples Easy Button concept, campaign, website, and total promotional program (including downloadable Easy Buttons) is brilliant and worthy of the Effies it has won, it also is tied directly to a charity.

The Easy Button of course doesn’t actually do anything—except bring joy to those who love to annoy people who tire of hearing a mechanical voice say, “That was easy!”—but it’s hard to resist buying when you stumble upon it in a Staples store. It’s only 5 bucks. And when you notice that up to $1 million of the proceeds go to the Staples Foundation for Learning with funds the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, you are doubly motivated to “contribute” by buying the button.

CV score: 9

Two Worthy Quotes About Value

2007-12-07T20:38:00.000-06:00

I buried a friend today, so I'm focused on the value of friends and spiritual healing at the moment--both of which would help us if we could bottle them.

So, instead of results of deep research or personal observation and philosophy, here are a couple of good quotes that have everything to do with determining consequential value.

Men value things in three ways: as useful, as pleasant or sources of pleasure, and as excellent, or as intrinsically admirable or honorable.
--Mortimer Adler

A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.
--Oscar Wilde

Grading the First Three Examples

2007-12-05T07:00:00.000-06:00

Let's take a look at how I grade Co nsequential Value as it applies to the first three examples I've posted.

Tom's Shoes, whose business model is to give a pair of shoes to shoe-less children in foreign countries, scores a 19 on the strength of the significant consumer (and global) impact causing a high level of brand lift.
Wells Fargo and David Bach score a 14--a score that I think that will be typical of promotions that involve books. Wells Fargo's promotion involved giving people a book about how to own a home and how that impacts a pursuit of financial stability along with seminars. In this case, both the lender's brand and the author' brand are affected. But the grid evaluates primarily Wells Fargo.

The Crown Plaza Hotel in Time's Square (New York, of course) gave customers a sleep package that included a CD with soothing music and relaxation techniques, a book that provided the latest information on sleep patterns and needs, and a plastic clip to hold your drapes together. I scored them a 12, missing higher points because the promotion didn't require the consumer to contribute to the brand's benefit while participating in the promotion. Still, 4 points on the "benefit to consumer" side is pretty baseline for my assessments. A great promotion for both consumer and brand.

Too Much Stuff

2007-11-30T07:37:00.000-06:00

Big house, big car, back seat, full bar.
Houseboat won't float. Bank won't tote the note.
Too much stuff. There's just too much stuff.
It'll hang you up dealing with too much stuff.

Hangin' out on the couch puttin' on the pounds.
Better walk, run, jump, swim. Try to hold it down.
You're eatin' too much stuff, too much stuff.
It'll wear you down, carrying around too much stuff.

Hundred dollar cab ride, fogged in, can't fly.
Greyhound, Amtrak, oughta bought a Cadillac.
Too much stuff. Too much stuff.
It'll slow you down, fooling with too much stuff.

Well, it's way too much.
You're never gonna get enough.
You can pile it high
but you'll never be satisfied.

Rent-a-tux, shiny shoes, backstage, big schmooze.
Vocal group can't sing, won awards for everything.
Too much stuff. Too much stuff.
They just keep on going, rolling in all that stuff.

Got hurt, can't work, got a lot o' bills,
But the policy don't pay 'less I get killed.
Too much stuff. Too much stuff.
Just my luck, counting on too much stuff.

Well, it's way too much.
You're never gonna get enough.
You can pile it high
but you'll never be satisfied.

Running back can't score till he gets a million more.
Quarterback can't pass. Owner wants his money back.
Too much stuff. Too much stuff.
You know, you can't get a grip when you're slipping in all that stuff.

Women every which-a-way messing with my mind.
You know, I fall in love every day three or four times.
Too much stuff. Too much stuff.
It'll mess you up, fooling with too much stuff.

Yeah, too much stuff. Too much stuff.
Too much stuff. Too much stuff.
You never get enough 'cause there's just too much stuff.
You know you can hurt yourself, fooling with too much stuff.
Yeah, it'll tear you down, fooling with all that stuff.

Too Much Stuff
by Delbert McClinton and Gary Nicholson

The Consequential Value Grading System, Part 2: Definitions

2007-11-27T07:46:00.000-06:00

Remember,

Everything has equal weight
It's pretty much small, medium, or large--or nothing
3 points is the most that can be scored in any category

Benefit to Consumer

Spiritual/Emotional Impact. To what the degree does the promotion meet a need that stands deep in the soul or emotions? Does it address emptiness, loneliness, sinfulness, or failure, for instance?
Material/Physical Impact. To what degree does the promotion/offer/service meet a need that otherwise cannot be addressed by the consumer? Does it address poverty, disability, poor health, or unemployment, for instance?
Community Impact. To what degree is the local community or affinity group improved because of the promotion/offer/service?
National Impact. Does the impact of the promotion/offer/service go beyond the local to the national? To what degree?
Global Impact. Does the impact of the promotion/offer/service go beyond the local or nation to the other nations/peoples of the world? To what degree?

Benefit to Brand

Education. To what degree is the promotion/offer/service disseminating information about the brand, assistance for human need, or a goal of the brand?
Contribution. To what degree is it likely that the consumer will invest in the promotion/offer/service or buy the "product"?
Inspiration. To what degree will the consumer be motivated--"turned on"--to invest in the brand as a result of the promotion/offer/service?
Evangelism. To what degree is it likely that the consumer involved in the promotion/offer/service will tell someone else (positively), and keep telling, about the brand?
Perceived Generosity. To what degree will the participant/recipient believe that the business is providing the promotion/offer/service without benefit (especially financially) to the brand itself--and would then be motivated to "buy"?

The Consequential Value Grading System, Part 1

2007-11-26T10:30:00.000-06:00

I'm not a marketing professional but as far as I've been able to ascertain nobody has studied what I'm working on here anyway. Regardless, I wanted to create some kind of evaluation system that takes away some of the subjectivity of my judgments--to keep me honest and keep this blog somewhat credible.

Everything on the matrix has equal weight. The benefit to consumer is almost as important in my mind as the benefit to brand. However, something must score on the benefit to consumer side to achieve at least some semblance of "consequential value." To keep it simple, I've decided to score 0 to 3 in each category. Think: N/A (not applicable), small, medium, large. So, technically, 30 points is possible, but I can't imagine how any promotion could ever achieve that. Some of these attributes are mutually exclusive (or awfully close). Even a low score is a good score: I'm not going to mention a promotion that can't get on the matrix.

The Perceived Generosity category is the one I think most people will "huh?" In my opinion, consumers are motivated to appreciate a brand and be more loyal to it when she believes that the business's generosity is "real." The more they believe the business is impacting them or the world and NOT benefiting themselves from the promotion, the more likely they are to "buy." Not being a marketing pro, I don't know this theorem to be absolutely true, but I believe it so much that I nearly used this category as a multiplier.

I'll be happy to hear from any marketing types who actually know whether I'm right or not. I have no trouble adjusting my matrix--I'm just learning here. In the meantime, WYSIWYG.

One More Consequential Value For Now: A Book for Potential Homeowners

2007-11-25T17:56:00.000-06:00

You'll soon learn that I believe books to be the ultimate, easy solution for giving customers something of real value. I'll delve into my reasons in future blogs. But for the moment, consider this example: the Wells Fargo edition of The Automatic Millionaire Homeowner by David Bach.

David Bach's partnership with home mortgage giant and founding sponsor of Bach's The Great American Homeowner Challenge, Wells Fargo, led the lender to ask Bach to write an Automatic Millionaire book for them that they could give away as a part of their 3-year initiative. The whole promotion included a speaking tour with Bach himself and several educational events. But the take-home was a paperback version of the book. 750,000 of them. Wells Fargo could have given away the usual stuff: coffee mugs, hats, T's, umbrellas...anything that would keep "impressing" the potential customers' brains.

But they gave a book. Though not as sexy as a coffee mug, this book provided benefits to the consumer a mug could never do: inspiration and information--why you want to own a home and how. Is there a better premium than the kind that inspires and informs? And the benefit to the David Bach and Wells Fargo brands? Good scores. Bach did the deal in part because it gave him access to thousands of people he would otherwise never reach. The same, I'm sure, can be said for WF.

From a publishing point of view, this deal was seriously cool--especially for a special sales guy like me. As counter intuitive as it is, the Wells Fargo edition spawned the 350,000-unit first printing of the hardcover trade edition--which was published after the first distribution of the paperback--and still made every best seller list (see this Publisher's Weekly article for more details). From a special markets sales point of view, this kind of sale is the holy grail.

Oh, and by the way, the book likely didn't cost any more than a mug.

Another Example of Consequential Value: Crown Plaza’s Sleep Aid

2007-11-20T16:36:00.000-06:00

You don’t have to be Tom’s Shoes to deliver a real, tangible value. Take, for instance, the Crown Plaza Hotel in Time’s Square, NYC.

When you stay there you don’t get a fruit basket, a bottle of wine, or turn-down service—all nice, but of no real value--you get a sleep aid package.

Beside the bed is a booklet with a CD and “drape clip” designed to keep even a peek-a-boo of light out of the room. The booklet details suggestions (from professionals) on how to get a better night’s sleep and the CD walks you through the process of going to sleep (“First, relax your toes”) including soothing music.

My friend and customer service expert Scott McKain would say this premium is a good step toward a great “customer experience.” He’d be right. More, it is a good example of giving the client something of consequential value.

Most hotels give you no more than shampoo to take home (remember the days before hotel shampoo?), but the Crown Plaza helped me sleep—both in New York and ever since. Okay, the clip was probably nothing more than a repurposed hair clip and the booklet /CD really didn’t cost all that much either. But what the Crown has provided me over time has been invaluable. More sleep.

It takes some creativity to elevate a premium from just another piece of ceramic or cotton to something of consequential value. Before my wife and I stayed at the CP, nearly a year ago, I had never heard of a “drape clip.” Since then, I’ve thought of the CP nearly every night thanks to education of a book, the soft, soulful sounds on a CD, and the clamping ability of a homely piece of plastic called a drape clip.

An Example of "Consequential Value": Tom's Shoes

2007-11-16T18:25:00.000-06:00

Before I continue with my manifesto, I thought it might be wise to demonstrate an example or two of what I’m talking about. So this is Example Number One.

When Blake Mycoskie first started contemplating building a shoe manufacturing business, he started with this crazy notion that he might be able to make money and help the world simultaneously. Rather than build his business for massive profits, a percentage of which would be donated to worthy causes, he created Tom's Shoes on this business model: for every shoe purchased, he sends a pair of (new) shoes to some place in the world where shoes rarely exist, but where they are sorely needed.

According to his website, he’s delivered 10,000 shoes to Argentina.

This hits the Consequential Value matrix on both sides. On the Consequence to Consumer, his efforts are physically very real, completely tangible--real shoes on the feet of real, desperately needy children. He scores huge in the categories of Material/Physical Impact and Global Impact. The Emotional/Spiritual Impact must be acknowledged to because of the well-being effect on the shoes’ recipients and the workers who delivered them. (We’ll assign numerical values later—right now we’re just talking.)

On the Benefit to Brand side, Tom also scores big in all 5 categories. To one degree or another, he’s educated his customers about the needs of the poor and of his brand’s mission; he’s involved his customers to the point of contribution (the mission encouraged purchase); the effort inspires the consumer to continue to buy; and surely customers become evangelistic about the brand. And in my opinion the brand gets a significant lift because the customer probably perceives Tom’s generosity as genuine.

If you’re skeptical about the brand lift, consider that Tom’s Shoes got the kind of promotion most companies only lust for—a documentary about the company and an NPR segment about the documentary.

Can you honestly say it didn’t cross your mind to buy a pair of Tom’s Shoes before you even got a look at them? How many brands do you know with that kind of pull?

Tom’s generous heart combined with sharp entrepreneurial skill brought about significant “consequential value”—in this case for the consumer, a huge group of non-customers, and for the brand itself.

A Great Deal May Not Be a Real Value, Part 3: Consequential Value

2007-11-15T17:05:00.000-06:00

The search for what I have coined “consequential value” asks not for number of “impressions made,” but:

In what way does the promotion/offer/service meet (not just promise) a real need--spiritual, material, emotional, or physical—of the targeted consumer?
Does the promotion educate or engage the consumer about the brand or a goal of the brand?If so, to what degree?
Does the promotion create a human benefit for a community larger than its own interests?If so, how big is the impact?To what degree is this generosity offered altruistically (without concern for some kind of “payback”)?

This diagram gives you a quick snapshot of what I think needs to be evaluated. More on this matrix in future posts.

Consequential Value is being used here in a specific marketing context. What is the impact on humans, the brand, or both--beyond feeling good about a brand enough to buy it or even become loyal to it—that the promotion/service/offer elicits? There are at least two common denominators to qualify as “consequential”:

The promotion itself must engage the consumer—the consumer must act.
The benefit to the customer can not be more “stuff.”

T-shirts with logos, syrupy advertising campaigns, and Buy-One-Get-One’s need not apply.

A Great Deal May Not Be a Real Value, Part 2: Real Human Need.

2007-11-14T21:10:00.000-06:00

Truthfully, most of us don’t really NEED more stuff. I can’t explain while well-paid people will stand in line to get schwag bags at conventions, but it’s not because of need. Maybe we just love the thrill of the deal. Regardless, we don’t need more stuff—logoed or otherwise--hence the great song “Too Much Stuff” performed by Delbert McClinton, Lyle Lovett, and John Prine. (Lovett: “I’ve been hurt by too much stuff.”)

Rarely connected to the stuff we get promoted at us, our real needs are more spiritual, more material if we are poor enough, and more physical. They are more basic, more primal, and more painful, and therefore more deniable. We need relief from the pain of failure or poverty or invisibility. We need acknowledgement as human beings or escape from forces that make us less than human. We need a cleaner environment or cleaner political leaders. We need justice where there is violence and “ism’s,” we need grace for our inadequacies. We need educations. We need better health. Some of us need shoes that fit.

True, it’s far easier to offer “stuff” than address “need.” Stuff makes a great analgesic--even the poor and the unhealthy are happy for a deal. So why go deeper than merely “wants,” “cool,” and “perceived needs”? Especially if it doesn’t have a direct affect on the brand?

Ah, but there’s the rub. Can’t an offer from a business that addresses human need also affect brand in a positive way? We should be imagining how this can happen.

A Great Deal May Not Be a Real Value, Part 1

2007-11-14T18:10:00.000-06:00

Most Americans view the concept of “value” as a quality or quantity vs. price issue: If I pay less than the market rate, I’ve got a good deal. That’s why my Sunday paper is stuffed with tabloids—to convince me the sale at Best Buy will provide more bang for the buck the Circuit City or Radio Shack It’s why I shop at TJ Maxx—the notion that I can buy a Calvin Klein coat for 30% of its real value. These are “good deals.”

Corporate promotions usually assume much the same consumer mentality: If enough consumers believe that our free sexy widget is worth the extra visit to the store and spending more than she normally would on regular product—AND she ends up feeling commensurately sexy…voila! Great Deal. This defines a good promotion. We make money and the brand gets a lift.

On an economic level, I can’t argue with these ideas: they work, they are true. I’d love a new iPod for dropping by your website. Throw a logo on it if you want. Thanks! But is that all there is?

No it’s not. And, fortunately, many businesses (profit and non-profit alike) use promotions, offers, and services that promote brand lift while addressing real human need. These efforts should be celebrated.

Plenty of examples are coming...but for now I'll leave you to your imaginations.