The Marketing Gene

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2007-03-27T15:29:00.000-07:00

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Beware bogus buzz

2007-03-01T09:44:00.000-08:00

It was bound to happen. As "viral" marketing flowed into the so-called mainstream it was just a matter of time before the weasels went to work on phoney blog postings, aliases, and emails to company websites. The travel bizz represents a good case in point and a cautionary tale. Here's syndicated columnist Arthur Frommer: "How hard is it from a giant PR firm to compose and then transmit several comments about a single hotel? How difficult is it for an embittered competitor of a particular travel facility to compose and send out several digs using artificial names? And which of these user-generated sites has the staff or the time to check out the validity of every comment it receives?" Not hard at all, actually. If you have the Marketing Gene your warning lights will flash whenever someone suggests various instruments of "stealth" marketing. It's not really stealthy anymore. It's become sleazey. Better to give people reasons to buy your stuff the old fashioned way.

Some get it, some don't get it.

2007-02-26T14:40:00.000-08:00

Something I read over the weekend about the recent JetBlue meltdown, and CEO David Neeleman's crisis management of it, reminds me that some execs "get" marketing. And others do not. Make no mistake, what JetBlue faced after the inexcusable, inexplicable way it treated passengers during this month's blizzard, may have been labeled a "PR" problem but its implications seep far into the airline's marketing and, ultimately, its operations function, as well. To Neeleman's credit, he let his instincts -- rather than his lawyers -- tell him what to do. The result was that the court of public opinion apparently cut him some slack. Crisis managers give Neeleman strong marks for putting JetBlue's brand ahead any of financial liability that may ensue. What's great about Neeleman's very public penitence, from the full page "We're sorry" ads in national media, to his appearance on the Letterman Show, to a video on You Tube was that it didn't require the advice of a crisis consultant. Why? Because Neeleman has the Marketing Gene. He sees the world through the eyes of his passengers, and not the lens of his company. The picture he saw screamed for him to make public acknowledgement that some horrendous wrongs had been done and that the buck stopped at his office. And just as some executives have an intuitive feel for what to do and how to do it, others see no recourse but circling the wagons and hunkering down with their attorneys. Those are generally the same tone-deaf bozos who, in the face of sluggish sales, will want to hack and hew at all expenditures intended to give people reasons to go out and buy their company's wares. The executives who "get" crisis management are, by and large, the same ones who get it when it comes to the broader marketing function as well. They know what it takes to give people reasons to buy because they share the same point of view. They see their own product through the eyes of their customers. You don't learn to do that, at least not in my experience working with senior managers. You either can or you can't. You get it, or you don't.

Wanna buy a quantum computer?

2007-02-20T17:29:00.000-08:00

Apparently there's some interest. How much? As of today, our launch of D-Wave Systems last week, at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley, followed a couple of days later at the Telus Science Center in Vancouver, B.C., generated about 300 media stories. Sure, this includes A.P. wire stuff in places like Soda Pop Valley, PA. But, still. This is a scalding-hot product concept in an equally hot category embraced by people who generate the heat of agitated molecules. What's the big deal with quantum computers, you ask? Good question. It boils down to making computing faster. By quantum leaps. What this will do for drug discovery, for example, boggles the imagination. Cancer vaccines? Cure for Alzheimer's? Maybe not as far off as people thought before last week. Anyway, it made me proud to be part of this process -- something I'd not experienced in many years. Great clients make great agencies. This was really cool. Stay tuned to D-Wave.

SuperBowl spots: exercises in theatrics, not marketing

2007-02-05T16:28:00.000-08:00

If marketing is what you do give people reasons to buy your beer/car/insurance/cola/etc., what we see during timeouts on Super Sunday is not marketing. Theater, standup, skits, self-indulgence and attempts at eye candy, but marketing? No way, no how. Consider the latest line-up of lames aired yesterday. Did the "slapfest" do it for you? Do you really want to go out now and by a Chevy? Do you really think Budweiser and Coors taste any better now than the swill they brewed before? There are more compelling, more entertaining, more interesting skits on Mad TV and SNL, every week, for way less money, than the dreck shoveled at us on Feb. 4.

Whose side on YOU on?

2007-01-26T11:26:00.000-08:00

I may not have gone to Davos this year, but I re-read a great little how-to book published in 2002, Net Words, by Nick Usborne, about online copywriting. (I saved a ton of money avoiding Switzerland.) Couple of things I got from the book I'll share with you now. Thing One: When you set about to write something aimed at a prospective customer, are you on your company's side, chasing a sale? Or do you instinctively identify with the prospect -- the person you're talking to? To write copy that sells, with apologies to Vince Lombardi, identifying with the customer isn't the most important thing. It's the only thing. For years, we've been pounding on the concept that outside-in marketing , what we call customer advocacy, is really about seeing the world through your customers' eyes. To write great copy, says Usborne, "...you need to have a place inside their heads and get a genuine feel for how they react to your site, how they feel about what you are offering--and what it would take to make them feel more comfortable about making a purchase." Amen. Here's Thing Two: Test, test and test again. "The Web is a tester's dream come true," Usborne writes. "While testing...in a direct mail piece involves a time line of months, those same kinds of tests can be executed and analyzed online in a matter of hours. You can test the words themselves, and you can test the various offers they describe." The customer side is the winning side. Be sure you stay on it.

How low can your logo go?

2007-01-19T17:34:00.000-08:00

Too many otherwise bright people in and around marketing believe in the inherent paranormal powers of the logo. So what is a logo, anyway? In fact, it's the graphic reminder of the "promise" your product (read: YOUR COMPANY) makes to a prospective buyer. It's a promise about the kind of experience the buyer can expect. Think of a logo. Cars: what does the VW logo promise? Or the Lexus logo? The Prius logo? Think of sporting goods. What can you expect about the product it adorns when you see the Nike swoosh? There are a couple of points here. First, an early-stage company isn't going to create an instant promise no matter how hip and cool and "authentic" its graphics might be. It takes time and promotional dollars to associate a logo with an experience. The second point is that it's not the logo per se that drives a reputation because the promise doesn't start there. With a new company (product) the promise made by the brand gives birth to the look of the logo. You've got to establish the promise first. The logo is merely the reminder of the experience you should expect.

Top ten reasons why some entrepreneurs are their own worst enemy

2007-01-11T10:25:00.000-08:00

When entrepreneurs go bad (jeeze, I'm starting to sound like a venture capitalist): 1. They want marketing to deliver eye candy early and often. 2. They believe their product is so cool and kick-ass, market research is a superfluous luxury. 3. They think marketing is what you do to compensate for a lack of cool, kick-ass product. 4. While denying it, they proceed as if delivery of the product is the objective -- rather than delivery of a successful product. 5. They think "A/B testing" has something to do with grade-point-average. 6. They know good eye candy when they see it. 7. They can't describe what their product does, but believe customers will know it when they see it. 8. "Market testing? User feedback? No time, man, schedule's too tight already." 9. When the product underwhelms the marketplace, they'll blame marketing for stale eye candy. 10. Out of funds, they'll seek jobs in marketing.

Before you hit "send", hit THINK.

2007-01-06T09:35:00.000-08:00

There should be an email button, right next to "send", labeled "think." A window would appear saying something like, "Sure you want to send this? Or should this information be communicated another way, say, in a phone call or a face-to-face meeting with the door shut?" Or, "are you sure the person who reads this will fully understand what you're saying or what you want accomplished?" Which brings me to this: how do you know, really know, when to send an email, or an instant message, make a phone call, leave (or not leave) voicemail, or just wait to communicate face to face? I know, it depends. But it also says something about the connections and similarities between a) communicating, b) marketing, and c) plain-old common sense. Here's what I mean: "Marketing" is what you do to give people reasons to buy. This means you have to know more than a little about the "people" to whom you're selling as well as the the stuff you want them to purchase. If you draw the analogy to email, voicemail, phone conversations, instant messages, and face to face meetings -- all of the above can be thought of as either "media" or "distribution". The content of your message is the product. First, let's get the no-brainers out of the way: It's not cool or productive to wait for a face to face meeting to alert somebody to a short-fuse deadline or share a "FYI" about a non-critical matter. And unless you're a total jerk, you don't demote or fire somebody via instant message. But most situations fall into the vast middle and require some thinking. If it's a one-to-one communication and a complex topic, opt for a phone call at least. Make it personal. If it's really complex, there is still no substitute for face-to-face. If a gaggle of people need copying, or blind-copying (which will always carry the stigma of sneakiness) email's probably still the way to go. A quick conversation on the fly is ready-made for instant messages. Still, working the phones and voicemail -- but ONLY for brief and succinct messages -- is preferential to most emails. Yes, it can be time-consuming and tedious to play phone-tag, but sometimes there's nothing more effective than the old "call". A phone call followed by a confirmational email leaves little room for misunderstanding. It's good communication and good marketing. Know your product AND your customer.

Top Ten Marketing Resolutions for 2007

2006-12-31T13:03:00.000-08:00

1. Remain a "student" of marketing. Stay on top of best practices. Find out how the really great marketing companies got to be that way. Emulate what they do. Reserve the right to alter your views by being smarter tomorrow than you were today. 2. Define what marketing is at your company. Don't let the other functions define you. Get people to understand and then agree on what the marketing function is and what it is not. BTW, here's a good definition: "marketing" is what you do to give people reasons to buy your product or service -- and it includes everything, starting with the product's conception all the way through its consumption. 3. Always be recruiting. Find out who the up-and-coming young talents are. Introduce yourself, take them to breakfast or lunch, sell the opportunities that exist in your shop or company, whether or not there a specific opening. 4. Be your own toughest critic. Constantly critique your outbound materials and programs for their selling power, customer perspective, relevance and competitive advantage. 5. Focus on making your strengths stronger. Don't waste time trying to "improve" your weaknesses as a manager, leader and marketer. Instead, leverage what you do best by doing it even better. When you think about it, this is what your organization should be doing, too. 6. Think of yourself as the Chief Customer Officer. This is, after all, the only title that means anything to the people who buy your products. Be an advocate for them. 7. Market "Marketing" throughout your company. With an eye to #2 above, make sure the people who are depending on what you do understand what you're doing and why. Clarify the difference between logos and brands, customers and accounts, etc. First, understand the differences yourself. 8. Take a good, hard, ruthless look at your website. Ask yourself if you, if you weren't an employee, would think it's compelling, informative, engaging and cool. Does it reflect your company and its prospects? If it does, and it's none of the above, maybe is it time for you to relocate? 9. Take your people offsite to congratulate, challenge, coach, and excite them about the year ahead. 10. Meet one significant new customer per month. Bonus 11. Prepare a top-ten resolutions list of your own, specific to your company's 2007 objectives. Make its preparation one of the things you and your staff do at your offsite meeting!

But I thought advertising and consumerism were the root of all the trouble in the world

2006-12-29T11:55:00.000-08:00

File this in the ever-burgeoning Things I Was Never Meant to Understand file. Hot-shot ad agency TBWA/Chiat/Day commissioned Wisconsin artiste Norbert Kox to create an image for the Art Directors Club's 86th annual competition (www.adcawards.org ). Kox, according to the SF Chronicle (Vision of the end? ), has painted religious themes for more than a generation. What astonishes me about this particular work is what it depicts: damned near every cliche spouted by the anti-advertising crowd today. The evils of "consumerism" are all over the landscape here. According to Kox, at least the message of his art, is that oil-addicted owners of SUVs, together with violent Christians, are unleashing the Apocalypse. Not to mention Armageddon. Hey, I'm as eager as most anybody for lesser dependence on petroleum, especially when so much of it is in the backyards of people not exactly distinguished by their rationality. But the overt political message here is as misguided as the decision to use it as the symbol of a gathering of advertising people. Gotta wonder what people working on the Hummer account who attend this thing, if any, will be thinking. Wonder how much TBWA ponied up for this thing? In the immortal word of Kermit the Frog, "Sheesh!"

This time of year, Fred Hoar's always in my thoughts

2006-12-26T12:55:00.000-08:00

Hard to believe it's been three years since he left us, but the late-great Fred Hoar, the dean of Silicon Valley PR guys , is never far from my thoughts. This time of year, especially. Fred adored Christmastime mostly because it gave him more excuses to be around even more people. And he was used to being around a lot of people. At his memorial service (Making time for a valley original Mercury News, The - Find Articles ), I reminded the standing-room-only crowd that Fred collected people the way some of us collect stamps, model airplanes or -- since this is Silicon Valley -- vacation houses. He was the definitive "people-person". He could drop names better and faster than anyone I've ever known. The difference between him and other name-droppers was twofold: the people whose names he dropped actually knew him and, second, you always forgave him. Hoar knew marketing as well as anyone I've ever been associated with. He knew what it is, and what it is not, and he knew the difference between the two. He shared some of this knowledge when he began a third career during the last years of his life as an adjunct professor of marketing at Santa Clara University. He had come full circle: he taught college-level English right out of Harvard, then began a business career that spanned four decades -- and a continent -- before he returned to the classroom as the 21st century commenced. As for his marketing smarts, I was again reminded of them the other day during another in a continuing series of debates with clients who confuse "telling" with "selling". I define "telling" as giving consumers/customers the information you want them to have and "selling" as giving them reasons to buy. There is a profound difference --one that separates success from failure. Knowing it makes the difference between whether you're a successful marketer or just another noisemaker in a loud room. I like to think I would have made Fred proud.

Cool product idea? Depends what your customers think

2006-12-12T10:15:00.000-08:00

I'll admit that I began my PR career at SRI-International back when it was called Stanford Research Institute -- and was always described with the word "prestigious" in front of it. I was reminded of this when I read of the new book by its current CEO, Curtis R. Carlson, Innovation: The Five Disciplines for Creating What Customers Want . By "reminded", I mean that you really don't hear very much about SRI-International today, despite the many products that owe their existence to it and the researchers who toil there in relative obscurity. The computer mouse, the graphical user interface and even food flavorings are but a few among dozens of devices and concepts that began life at SRI.I've not read the book, the gist of which is that you should always look to prospective customers and partners for guidance when it comes to new product ideas. Really? Anyone needing a book to get such a revelation is probably not going to last very long in any competitive business, let alone create "what customers want". Steve Turner and I are continually amazed by seemingly intelligent people who insist that their idea, their new thing, their pet project -- no matter how ill-conceived and half-baked -- is bound to take the world by storm. That buyers will blow down the doors to get at it. And that all they need to make it happen is really great marketing. On the cheap, of course. In fact, "really great marketing" is what they need in the first place to come up with a really great product. Or, to reveal to them that the product they're trying to sell actually sucks.On second thought, if reading this book encourages even one of these people to start believing that the most successful products are always conceived with real people and real needs in mind, and a lot of marketing sweat in advance, it will have served an invaluable purpose.

From startup to "going concern" -- don't forget what made you successful in the first place

2006-12-07T15:22:00.000-08:00

The advice column written by Jack and Suzy Welch at the back of each Business Week is worth the subscription price of the whole damn magazine. The Dec. 11 issue is no exception. In it, they tackle two seemingly unrelated questions, one about growth and another about education, but there's a common thread and it contains implications for marketing departments of all sizes. In their answer to question #1 about going from a small company to a big one, they caution against a small company's tendency, as the company grows, to let the original mission and values go to seed. Not abandoned, per se, but allowed grow stale as more new people pour in. Anyone who's been associated with early-stage companies, especially those which have enjoyed sharp revenue growth, can cite chapter and verse about the surprising perils of success. How the kinds and types of people who are attracted to a proven success can be so dramatically different from those who were attracted to the start-up -- the unchartered territory. The risk. The Welch counsel: Stay "small", AKA young-at-heart, by getting back to the basics of your mission and values. Don't just talk about them, live them. As in putting rhythm to what was formerly an ad-hoc budget process: "Keep the planning down to a few slides designed to general lively discussion, and make sure budgeting doesn't devolve into a phony series of negotiations that culminate in a rigid number instead of exciting stretch goals." Any veteran of the marketing budget Kabuki will resonate to these words. Holding on to the informal, nothing-can-stop-us spirit that brought you to success in the first place does not allow you to "wing it" the way you could in the old days. Next, make sure "A" players hire only "A" players. There is unfortunate tendency among "B" players to want to drag in "C" players. The results are predictable. Finally, an appraisal system, twice a year, that identifies great, average and below-average (A,B,C) contributors. Badge numbers are irrelevant, and should never factor in to performance reviews. Unrealistic, maybe, but nothing undermines morale more harmfully that cutting a slacker more and more slack, just because he or she got on the bus early. Lastly, in question #2, a biz school prof asks how best to prepare student for global business. The Welch answer was a variation on the theme introduced in the growth question. The nitty-gritty of people management gets short-changed in the educational hierarchy. Hiring, firing, motivating and team-building are the building blocks of a successful organization. To the extent that managers know how to get the most out of human resources, they will manage successful growth -- from small to big, and big to bigger.

Yeah, your marketing people may be smart -- but not that smart

2006-12-04T16:27:00.000-08:00

My old buddy Paul Wiefels, the oracle of Chasm Group, well, maybe one of the oracles, just returned from a two-day gig in S.E. Asia. His assignment: bring a mega-software outfit's local folks up to "best practices" snuff. As it turned out, the first order business, even prior to his getting on the airplane, was to take a hard look at the existing curriculum and lesson plan and make necessary tweaks. The tweaks turned into radical surgery. As he put it, over breakfast recently at the Four Seasons in S.F., he quickly informed his client that the material he was given to review was the equivalent of calculus being force-fed to middle-school math students. "Yeah," said Paul, "there may be one or two people who might get it. But for the rest of the class, it's a set-up for failure." Wiefels' lesson plan boiled down to three parts: "What", followed by "so-what" and concluding with "now-what". In the "what" section, a plain-spoken introduction and explanation of what was going to be examined. In the "so-what" portion, he would explain why this is important to understand and useful to implement. Finally, in "now what", the day is concluded with take-home tools the participants could start to use and apply right away. Brilliant. In the original lesson, the client was throwing jargon and concepts around under the assumption that everyone in marketing knows what we're talking about. Big mistake. Rarely will you find, in group of 25 marketing people, a consensus on any elementary marketing concept -- so disjointed and opaque and definition-free the function remains, particularly in technology industries. Want to hold your staff's attention and make them feel useful? Tell them what needs to happen, in basic business-speak. Explain why. Then hand over the toolkit they'll need to make it happen.

Brands on the brain

2006-11-29T11:58:00.000-08:00

Turns out Al Reis was right. Now there's further scientific evidence. "Positioning" is just another way of describing where your brand lives in the consumer's brain. Actually, it's not all that creepy or Manchurian Candidate-ish. It's reality and it's nothing new. Of course, the San Francisco Chronicle, self-appointed watchdog for social and economic justice, has a different take, (Your branded brain) admittedly tongue-in-cheek, in a short editorial expressing relief that we're not yet at a place where pre-purchase control holds sway. We could debate this, however. Background: ABC News: Shoppers' Brains Under Brand-Name Control details how German scientists measured how brands evoke responses, positive and negative, in the human brain. When you think about it, however, it comes down to a lot of what constitutes marketing in the first place: common sense. Marketers who apply it (common sense) are more highly regarded than ones who do not. It took a scientist to call attention to this? Article in the New Scientist last January sheds further light with a slightly different scientific angle: How brands get wired into the brain - health - 04 January 2006 . Small wonder why back in the day, behavioral psychologists and sociologists were a mainstay in ad shops big and small.

Why "marketing" is what companies do for a living

2006-11-22T11:02:00.000-08:00

Further evidence that the marketing function isn't just a "function", but the very raison d'etre of any commercial enteprise: commentary from last week's conference presented by the Wharton Entrepreneurial Club, University of Pennsylvania. Our partner Steve Turner sparked discussion amongst the aspiring entrepreneurs, MBA students, Wharton alumni, faculty, venture capitalists and business owners in attendance when he shared anecdotes about new-product paranoia (read: what engineers fear about broaching the subject of new products with customers). To wit: Engineers with a new product idea they think is "the next new thing" often fear that someone will rip it off. While this does happen, it's usually after a disruptive product proves that there's market worth pursuing. "Disruptive" ideas are typically ridiculed at first. They are resisted by conventional wisdom. Would-be competitors who hear about a concept and then reject it out of hand do so because of NIH and fear. They don’t want the success in which they are invested to be undermined by a new technology that will disrupt the status quo—which always includes their job. If you sense fear, you have a good idea. Moral to this story: "Marketing" is really about producting-ing and customer-ing. All business starts with a product, and all successful products are conceived in the womb of intelligent, streetwise marketing. "Knowing" the customers/consumers you target and pursue, in the quantitative sense of the word, isn't enough. Streetwise marketing -- what we call Customer Advocacy(tm) -- implies a keen emotional and psychological knowledge that is cumulative and nonstop. In this sense, "marketing" is nothing more or less than what your enterprise does for a living. What function can possibly be more fundamental?

Think you're ready for a Web (2.0) site? Think again.

2006-11-21T11:45:00.000-08:00

How to know when you’re ready to design and develop a Web site for your hot, new Web 2.0 business? First thing to consider is that you’re probably not ready. In yesterday’s rant (View ) I described the pitfalls of taking on a vast Web project with half-vast data about your customer and market. Hardly earth-shattering revelations, but many entrepreneurs are inclined to rush headlong into the fray without adequate knowledge of the people they’ve targeted. We explained how to gather this data. Today: Stage Two -- the preliminary-project-plan stage. What this amounts to is the basis for a Web-based, project management site that allows new elements to be added, including information architecture, brand identity, user interface, product design and completion of the Final Project Plan. Your agency, or Web developer, should equip you with tools to do this for a set monthly fee, and services that can be retained even after the site goes live. You can post changes that you would like made by the developer and they can update it with the status and expected completion date. Next, the structure of the site -- navigation and how things are connected -- is formally outlined and approved. This is the foundation for the next steps. As far as your brand identity, it’s important to keep in mind only one thing about a logo, despite all the emotion, for better or worse, that logos tend to arouse. Your logo is simply a reminder what the brand signifies. Because it will be applied primarily online, it needs to be designed to work as part of a user interface that is consistent with what your brand promises. You should consider anywhere from five to ten logo options that have been formally cleared as defensible in the marketplace (that they don’t come too close to what somebody else has). What’s most important here is to explore a number of ways of making and keeping the brand promise in a user-interface that streamlines the process for users to get what they want to find (even if they don’t know what you are offering). Again, it’s important that your agency show you multiple, viable options. Check list: Is it easy? Does it grab and hold attention, especially for first-time users? Is it fun, enjoyable? Can the visitor become confused or lost? When they leave, can they return easily? If you’re selling a service to another company (business-to-business), does it take on the function of a “shell” for applications within that customer’s company? Is it easy to automatically refresh updated information? Visitors should be able respond to you with comments about the site, the products, and the brand. This is best means of knowing, continuously, what you must do to keep your business aligned with needs and expectations of your users. With the IA, UI and features/products designed, your project plan is ready for implementation. And only now are you prepared to collaborate with technical specialists. The scope of work defined in the project plan enables you assess the skills required to supplement your core team. Vast projects call for vast, but eminently do-able, preparation!

If your "Interactive" agency doesn't do this, fire them!

2006-11-20T14:05:00.000-08:00

It should come as no revelation that there’s a cause-and-effect relationship between (1) how well you give your customers what they need and (2) your ability to grow revenue. No brainer, right? Well, for many would-be Web 2.0 entrepreneurs, this is a surprisingly challenging concept. Sometimes they need gentle reminding that if you can consistently grow revenues from the moment you launch your site, you are much more likely to maintain leadership in your new category. At our shop, we are obsessively curious about the people our clients want to reach and what value our clients are offering along the way. While we don’t have hard quantitative data or specific qualitative feedback at the outset of any particular client engagement, the more we can gather along the way then the more the client’s prototype will be productively aligned with the market being targeted. The point here is that everything we do advocates on behalf of the client’s customer, consumer, or target. This is part of what we mean by Customer Advocacy™ . Three Stage Process Face it. Most agencies’ offerings contain “Web site design” and/or “development”, but a client must demand something far beyond design and development of a site. The superior approach has multiple stages. Here’s what I mean: The first stage is about defining the promise you’re making to customers and then drawing a detailed picture of exactly who those people are. What is it you’re selling and why should the person you’ve targeted care about it? This, I hasten to add, implies some kind of identification and assessment of the competitive offerings out there. Do not foolishly assume, or try to delude yourself, that you are free of those pesky things called competitors. Whatever it is you’re selling has some kind of existing analog, some form of present existence today. It’s a truism that venture capitalists reflexively dismiss any entrepreneur who claims no competitors. If what you’re doing does, indeed, constitute a new category you still need to appraise the strengths and weaknesses of like categories and competitors currently out there. The more market intelligence you can provide to your agency, the less work they’ll have to do. As a logical extension of the research, your aim should be to articulate why you can maintain and grow your brand’s leadership. What is the promise you’re making that you can own? This crispness of this “brand promise” solidifies your positioning (relative to other categories and future competitors) and allows you to have a simple organizing principle for everything you do. Okay, now let’s talk about drawing the picture we mentioned earlier. Who are the early adopters that will be attracted to your new thing? While the potential market may indeed be vast, you have to start with early adopters who can, sooner than others can, perceive in your brand something in it for them. Here, you need to make educated guesses and your agency should help you with the research to substantiate your hunches. This kind of targeting will allow you to focus your promotional dollars from the moment your site goes “live” and will also assure that the prototype is consistent with the audience you would like to reach first. It makes it less difficult to find people (who match this profile) who can provide feedback along the way to ensure that your site is effective from day one. If you were to select an early adopter to flesh out as a real person, who would it be? What would be his/her occupation, frustrations, aspirations and demographics? How does your brand promise translate into benefits for this one person (what do they expect to get out of using the site)? When a sample target audience has an opportunity to experience the site, you can solicit feedback from them that will may reveal additional benefits. Yet, many more questions need answering. When people land at the site for the first time, what choices do they experience? Each option should be logical and give visitors obvious choices that immediately pay-off what the brand promise is. For example, you have suggested that they can take a test when they arrive. That might not be their first choice however. They may want to see a short streaming video that spells out what they will get out of this site. They also might want to find what other people like themselves are saying about the site. A range of the most appropriate choices will empower the user and probably make the site more effective at retaining and converting visitors to paying customers. What keeps them engaged throughout the site? There are many all factors to consider in creating a series of experiences that allow people to get hooked at an emotional level. Here are just a few: If they drift away from your site, what would bring them back? If you refer people to sources offline, will they return? How soon? At what point in the process? How can the Web site be part of the overall user experience? Why will they pay you (will they perceive sufficient value in what your brand offers)? If they are expected to pay significant upfront fees, what reference can you provide that will allow them to feel confident that they are not taking a risk? What are the problems that might get in the way your brand keeping its promise? For example, If you are aggregating content, editing becomes very important. If you are creating all the content yourself, you’re obliged to maintain consistently high-quality that will keep the brand promise. Make sure your agency works with you to develop a methodology that is scalable. The Next Stage Stage Two (2) is focused on architecting the content and how it will be experienced. The deliverable would amount to a Final Project Plan, Photoshop files, content and media assets required to move into the technical development. I’ll explain this Stage tomorrow!

It's not easy being different (Part 2)

2006-11-17T14:05:00.000-08:00

In yesterday's rant (View), I noted the fundamental requirement in this business to ask the toughest, and sometimes "stupidest" questions of entrepreneurs who would be category leaders and captains of new industries. I used the example of a mythical, Web 2.0 business requesting proposals from interactive (Web design/development) agencies. The challenge for client and agency in this instance is to realize, and get their collective heads around, the reality that even to propose what such a site would entail requires a weeks-long, or longer, effort to establish a precise definition of the target, the brand, and the experience that will enable success from the moment the site goes live. This is the way we see it at Turner/DeVaughn: The first deliverable would amount to a preliminary, but very detailed, project plan. Despite the "preliminary" label, this plan is literally the blueprint for the architecture of the actual content on the site and how it will be experienced. It's impossible to overstate its importance. In other words, its preparation is critical to measurable results and success of your business. The more resources wisely invested in this planning stage, the more effectively the team can function in developing and rolling out the most successful site possible. One that starts making money right away. Validating assumptions and substantiating gut-feel and hunches about the market (your users) calls for heavy research, secondary and primary. You need to focus dollars on promotion to the right "prototype" of early adopter -- a profile consistent with the important audience you need to reach right away, when you first "go live". Only then are you prepared to specify descriptions of what choices to give users when they arrive at the site, what keeps them engaged, what brings them back, possible friction points, payment issues, mechanics of referrals, and even a trademark-able name. You won't have all the answers at the end of this preliminary stage, but you will be assured of having a clear definition of your market, brand promise and target audience. In typical cases with early-stage companies, this information is conspicuously absent when the call for proposals go out to agencies. Ironically, it's the one thing you must have to conduct a productive conversation with them. Only those agencies that insist on having it, prior to proposing anything, are worth talking to.

In the agency world, it's not easy being different

2006-11-16T14:49:00.000-08:00

A meeting with a prospective client today afforded me the chance to talk about Steve Turner's, and my, favorite subject. Namely, our shop. Well, maybe not quite that crassly but I did get the opportunity to yammer at some length about some salient, competitive differences. Here's the abridged version: Within a ten block radius of the Turner/DeVaughn studio, in the South o' Market district of S.F., there are probably a dozen purveyors of services and deliverables such as ours. A few of them inhabit our building. The difference between us and a number of them? Their readiness and eagerness to relieve a client of his/her hard-won capital by delivering precisely what the client asks for, and/or whatever they suspect the client will likely buy. The problem is that any causation or correlation between what that client buys and that thing's ability to put a bigger number on the top line of the client's income statement is, to paraphrase the old movie disclaimer, purely coincidental. This is not the way to practice marketing, advertising, or branding in the Internet Age, or any other age past or future. A good test for the kind of agency you want to throw in with is to feel its readiness not to sell, ingratiate, flatter, flummox or substantiate your hunches and pre-conceived ideas; but to look you straight in the eye and flat out tell you that you don't know what you don't know. Here's an example. Say you have cool idea for a "Web 2.0" business. You shop around for a web designer to kick your concepts up several notches. You think you have your target in the crosshairs, in terms of potential customers, and you think you're closing in on your brand promise. So , you ask for a proposal. If the agency you're talking to tells you sit down, take a deep breath and several steps back, you're probably in the company of guys who are, indeed worth talking to. If, on the other hand, you get a proposal for an incredibly cheap website that basically borrows your watch to tell you what time it is, just say "no". Please. Getting to a real proposal for real work on an architecture for the content that's going to turbo-charge your topline necessitates the rigors of someone asking, and your answering, some very comprehensive and occasionally "stupid" questions. Something called, for lack of a better term, a preliminary proposal. More about this, tomorrow.

These guys know their customers

2006-11-13T11:06:00.000-08:00

In Silicon Valley marketing, one of the more enduring cliches is one about the need to"know your customers". Which, of course, has been honored more in the breach than the observance. Valley superstars in marketing are rare compared to the legions of tone-deaf, wannabes. At my last tour of duty on the client-side, Network Appliance (NTAP), there was no shortage of people with "marketing" in their titles who would parrot the gotta-know-your-customers soundbite regularly. Not that they didn't know customers one-to-one, but it was more in the realm of knowing them as "accounts", not as understanding what the world looks like through their eyes. Every so often, however, you come across marketing efforts having "customer" DNA. Check out the latest Fortune mag piece describing how Sony needs a home run with the PS3. Pay special attention to the ways in which uber-cool agency, TBWA/Chiat/Day (Apple's shop) created Sony's (SNE) weeping baby-doll. Coolness is fleeting, to be sure. Still, when you have marketing people who truly understand what turns off the target audience, chances are good they get it when it comes understanding the turn-ons. One of the tactical missions of customer-advocate (tm) is to reduce friction by staying out of the customer's way.

Amazing how much intelligence can be gleaned by asking stupid questions

2006-11-10T11:11:00.000-08:00

"The more stupid the question, the more valuable the answer" is an old saying I heard somewhere, back in the day, and it's still as relevant as ever. It's kind of a variant on the one that says there are no stupid questions, just stupid answers. The results of this week's mid-term elections stand as testimony to the national repudiation of policies, almost all Iraq-related, that were conceived and implemented in vacuum devoid of of stupid questions. Of course, since so few people in positions of significance want to look stupid asking stupid questions, you get stupid policy. Well, maybe not stupid policy, per se, but certainly a stupidity inherent in the unwavering and steadfast implementation of a strategy going absolutely nowhere. So what, you ask, does this have to do with the commercial world of marketing and branding? Everything. Failure to be smarter tomorrow about what you're doing today all but guarantees failure in the long-run in whatever it is you're doing. One of the best ways to fail at being smarter is to avoid asking, and answering, the stupid questions you must ask on a regular basis: 1. Who's buying our product and how are they using it? 2. How do they describe the problem it solves? 3. How did they hear about it? 4. What do we actually do that nobody else does? 5. What's on the competitive horizon and what's our plan to deal with it? There's nothing as stupid as the unwillingness to raise and ask stupid quesions. Then, when they're answered, being unwilling or unable to come up with more of them.

Yet another tip for entrepreneurs:

2006-11-09T17:13:00.000-08:00

My agency partner, Steve Turner, held forth the other day with his take on what entrepreneurs need to "get" before they can get funded, get going, and get ahead. The most important thing they need to show, said Steve, is a "top-line growth strategy". Things that get in the way of being able to do this, credibly, include the following: 1. Having a product, or a technology, that's looking for a problem to solve. This is the inverse of the old saying about finding a need and filling it. There are just too many things out there that are "fills" to needs that don't exist or that are already met. 2. Not being conversant with, or sufficiently knowledgable about, your target customer. Another way of saying that you can talk all day long about your product's features, but become mysteriously tongue-tied when it comes to a crisp articulation of the benefits those features deliver. 3. Having little, or no, feedback -- real world data -- from any early adopters who are using the product, resulting in scant knowledge about how the product is really being used, and how to make using it easier and simpler for so-called early majority customers who represent the next wave of users. 4. Having little, or no, hard data about the actual size of the market in your sights. 5. Ill-equipped, due to items 1-4 above, they go ahead and develop a biz plan anyway and maybe manage to get some seed money or venture funding to build out the technology in hopes that some customer, somewhere, will recognize the irresistibility of the concept. Those entrepreneurs who can connect the dots in terms of what the customer is doing with the product and the real benefits derived thereby will flourish and prosper. The ones who cannot will be baffled and frustrated about not getting traction -- despite all the third-party data that suggested a vast, lucrative market just waiting to be tapped.

Why I advocate customer advocacy (tm)

2006-10-24T16:12:00.000-07:00

We flit from trend to trend in this society. Now at a faster rate than ever, given the attention-deficit disorder affecting more of us each day. We trend-hop in business, especially. "Innovation". "Service". "Design". "Creativity". "Excellence". Each of these concepts are certainly valuable. Each has been the subject of books, lectures, magazine cover stories and buzz galore. Still, what does it all add up to? I'm not really sure, but I have a hunch. Based on 30 years of watching the repetition of patterns in successes and failures, I don't think it "adds up" so much as it boils down to this: unless innovation, service, design, etc. are doing something for a paying customer somewhere, they are absolutely worthless. This is why I think the concept of customer advocacy trumps everything else. It is the starting point. Proverbial "square one". "Advocating" on behalf of customers isn't a trend. It's a state of mind. A way of life. A culture unto itself. How can you tell if and when a company is a customer advocate? You can start by taking a look at their recent revenue history. How are sales doing and what does the trend reveal? What's in the product pipeline? What's the buzz among users? Are competitors emulating them -- or are they eating their lunch? How's their stock price doing, adjusted for any downturns or upticks in their category? These, of course, are the macro indicators, the outward signals that can be gleaned from public information. What about early-stage companies? How can you distinguish a bona-fide, customer-advocate entrepreneur from a wannabe? There are no shortcuts to due diligence. You have to do the diligence. Still, there are questions to ask, as a starting point: What is the problem your product, or service, addresses and solves? Who has this problem? How are they dealing with it today, in the absence of your solution? How do they describe this problem -- in their terminology? What will they pay to use your solution? What evidence do you have to support this? What experience do you have with the people you've targeted? How big is this problem (how many people have it, or know they have it)? What evidence do you have to back this up? Anything less than thoughtful, throught-thru answers to each of these questions should raise a red flag. You're either advocating for customers, or you're in search of the problem that you think your product might solve. That may not be like walking backwards, exactly, but it's close. At the very least, it's not the way to run a business.