Note to CMO:

Note to CMO: New Post at New Home

2008-11-21T10:44:00.000-08:00

Dear CMO (cc: dear readers):

I've posted what I hope is a fairly optimistic piece on "winning the micro game in a macro disaster" over at the new home of Note to CMO -- so if you haven't reset your RSS, click on over.

Note to CMO: Winning the Micro Game in a Macro Disaster

The new home, as mentioned in the last post, is here: www.note-to-cmo.com.

Regards.

Note to Readers: Re-Set RSS (I'm moving)

2008-11-16T16:41:00.000-08:00

Dear CMO:

I've been away, in writing terms, for a few weeks. My apologies for the lapse. I've had my head down getting a few things off my desk and I hope to have a post or two out this week. So, in that spirit, I've got two things:

1. Please RESET YOUR RSS FEEDS TO POINT TO http://www.note-to-cmo.com/. I've got a chicklet up on the new site, so you can re-subscribe when you get there. I'm moving off Blogger to my Denny Marketing site, with my Note to CMO blog embedded in it (Word Press this time). I've been meaning to do this for awhile, so hopefully this move should also give you a bit more about me.

2. I'll get a new series of posts up shortly.

Thanks for your patience!

Regards.

Note to CMO: Doubling Your ROI by Winning in the Last 3 Feet

2008-10-20T02:00:00.000-07:00

Dear CMO:

Think of how much more effective your marketing budget would be if you asked three more questions:

Question #1: OK, now that we're done with our campaign planning and understand all the final execution-level details... what happens next?

Question #2: OK, now what do we do?

Question #3: Got it, now what?

Pretty intellectual stuff here. If you're into deep paradigm shifting, try the paradigm you're standing on first before you reinvent the wheel. No one executes well enough, and if we did, our marketing efforts would pull in twice the returns they do today.

You push your company to launch a certification program for your channel parter sales people. You get the budget, you select your e-learning vendor, you modify your existing power point presentations, and you push it out to your partners with a program to drive enrollment. There. Done.

Question #1: OK, now that we're "done," what do we do next? How have we constructed the actual training? Is it death by power point, or have we steeped the curriculum, quizes, and take-aways in the best practices of the psychology of persuasion? Have we brought in examples of social proof -- of many, similar others that have gone before your students and who might serve as good role models? -- or of authority figures who can show case studies that support your positions? Have you employed reciprocity -- have you given before you have received -- to promote the relationship?

Or did you just check the box?

Question #2: OK, now what? Did you engage your channel partner principals with a financial presentation, proving the value of your program and making it their own? Did you market your program -- create an identity, a design language, put creative and appropriate media behind it, launch it, support it, and promote it -- the same way you would have launched one of the products you are certifying them to sell? Compare a product launch, from budget to marketing outputs, to your program launch: did you give it enough of a chance to win?

Question #3: And... now what? What else did -- or didn't -- you do? Are you employing social media to get the erstwhile competitors in the field to feed off of each other? Are you supporting this with after-the-launch incentives, promotions and awareness building activities? What else? What after that?

* * *
Key Takeaways:

> We're all too busy. We have too many products, too many programs, and too many demands on our time to make sure that every bolt is tightened and every touch point is engineered to its optimal level. Right? Wrong. We're too busy to prepare a post-mortem to management explaining why the program wasn't as effective as we originally thought and how we'll spend more money and more time re-launching it at greater expense. Spending the time today, before we launch, is what we have time for.

> They're too busy, too. Our competitors aren't nearly as smart as we are. We're just more alpha than they are. Period. So trust that they won't do this as well as we do. As a matter of fact, whoever they are, we -- with our superior planning, execution, and focus on those last three feet where all battles are won or lost -- will take advantage of their sloppiness. We want to be in the position so that when they spend more money, our sales go up. Does our certification program talk about their certification program? Do we debunk their tests, their management double-talk, or their solutions? Do we always drag them out over the thin ice of our creation? Of course we do. That's why we're so... damn... good.

> Spending all of your time on driving awareness and little of it on the absolute last moments prior to full engagement means you're leaving things to chance. Regardless of whether these last moments refer to your channel sales person finishing your certification program AND psychologically committing themselves to your cause, or to the guy standing in the aisle at Best Buy wondering which TV to buy, you don't win until they choose you. And if you're spending your budget wisely -- particularly in difficult economic times -- you'll focus on conversion at this point of influence. It isn't enough to drive them in. You need to win them over. Let the other guy spend his money on driving them in. It costs more and means less.

* * *

When times get tough, we all need to focus our attention on what realizes revenue in the most efficient manner possible. Let your competition spend the big bucks on driving category awareness. You can win at the point of influence with a smaller, smarter strategy that focuses on your target at the instant they are going to commit themselves.

More on this later, with a stronger retail spin next time!

Regards.

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

Note to CMO: My Week of Twitter

2008-10-16T05:46:00.000-07:00

Dear CMO:

CK told me I had to do it. That Twitter was the reason that so many blogs had so fewer posts and even fewer comments, that microblogging (which my spell checker refuses to believe is a word) is the new blogging, and that Note to CMO needed a smaller 140 character voice. Never one to shy away from the social media thing (I did draw the line at Second Life), I’ve been up for a week or so. This is what I’ve found.

One: people I don’t know are following me. This web thing sure is amazing.

Two: 95% of the Twitter traffic is utterly useless.

Three: 5% of the Twitter traffic is actually pretty useful.

Four: 50% of the 95% is political – which is odd, given the fact that I’m really only following marketing people. Another 40% keeps me updated on people’s gate change announcements, plus various other forms of slightly veiled self-aggrandizement.

Five: Tim Siedell is the funniest voice on Twitter. One hundred and forty characters of media-savvy Twitter haiku.

Six: people who send links to studies, articles, insights, or other people’s posts that matter are the 5% I mentioned above.

Seven: I’m part of the 95% at the moment, but I aspire to be part of the 5%.

Note to CMO is a long-form blog – I just think in blocks of 400 words – so having the ability to be an aggregator is interesting to me. I think Twitter can be pretty useful to me once I find my voice. Note to CMO is written as an open letter to the Chief Marketing Officer, much as CS Lewis wrote “The Screwtape Letters” to his mythical demonic understudy, Wormwood, and as Seneca’s missives on Stoic philosophy were often addressed to his correspondent, Lucillius. I don’t think that 140 characters helps me keep to my form – unless I really want to write all insights and links in a zen-like 5-7-5 haiku style. I’ll think about it. Don’t hold me to it.

Feel free to follow me at http://twitter.com/Note_to_CMO if Twitter works for you. And who knows, maybe I’ll figure out how to get to the aspirational 5%.

Regards.

Note to CMO: Hubris, the Dow, and Your Business

2008-10-15T09:15:00.000-07:00

Dear CMO:

Hubris is what happens when you think you don’t have to try anymore. Your “brand equity” is better than Brand X – or of Brand Z.com, that pesky start-up that is responsible for half of your PR pick-ups over the past sixty days, none of which are flattering.

Hubris is when you think it’s OK just not to make waves right now. When you’re tired of arguing. When you’re sure that things will be OK, regardless.

Hubris is when you don’t think you have to compete to win. When you get “gator arms” and don’t really stretch too far anymore for fear that you might get blindsided.

Hubris is when you think that you’ll weather the storm better than most because of all the hard work that you did a while ago.

Hubris is what creeps in when you chalk it all up to “timing,” or “market conditions,” or other unmentionable forces beyond your control.

Hubris is when you already know your customer so you don’t need to do more outreach, more research, more engagement, more dialog, more anything. Trust us, we’re experts.

Hubris is entitlement. The expectation of victory without the preparation or execution you always needed in the past.

Hubris is arrogance, the certainty of saying, “don’t you know who we are?” when the listener clearly doesn’t care one way or the other.

Hubris happens after you’ve been successful, but before you understand what caused your success.

Hubris is a fatal mistake in all human endeavors, because once you’re branded as ‘over’ by your customers, your channels, your influencers, your pundits and your analysts, you need to work twice as hard to win back their confidence – usually against an internal culture that wants nothing more than to go back to sleep in their personal snow bank.

In uncertain economic times, many will rely on the past to carry them forward. If I were counseling you, I’d suggest that now is the time to think harder about how you can make life easier for the people that matter to you in uneasy times. It doesn’t always have to cost more money, but it will definitely take more work.

Regards.

Note to CMO: the Future of Debates vs. Dialogs

2008-10-06T05:11:00.000-07:00

Dear CMO:

A trend, a trajectory, and an event to animate it all.

The trend: the world seems so caught up in its own ability to self-publish that it is ignoring the other half of “dialog” – there is a growing shortage of conversation, with only massive parallel monologues taking place. Look at blogging in general, the growth of groups within LinkedIn where “discussions” have no “answers”, and the lack of debate in debates. We’re all talking. Unfortunately, no one’s listening.

The trajectory: our traditional gatekeepers are crumbling. Look at television: today, you watch a show created by a production company, packaged by a network, and delivered by a cable operator. The network decides when you can watch it. The cable operator decides whether you get to see it at all, and what else it comes along with. Want to watch the Tennis Channel? Here, have these six Mexican soap opera channels, as well. The arrival of ubiquitous bandwidth, unlimited storage and Ethernet connections in the back of our TV sets means the rules are about to quickly change. I want to watch what I want to watch, when I want to watch it – either “live,” in the case of a debate or a sporting event, or “when I damn well want to,” like all four seasons of House. Disintermediation is increasingly the name of the game.

The event: if you saw the Vice Presidential debate last night – and still have a burning passion for politics, and better yet are actually “undecided” in this upcoming election – you may be the rarest of rare things, the “sub-segment of one.” Whether we watch elected officials hurl accusations and conclusions at each other (again, everyone talking and no one listening, let alone “responding”) or blindly spouting their talking points, regardless of the question asked, we see a complete lack of meaningful discussion taking place.

If we look at the US election cycle as the most intensely studied branding event of the current day, we would be forgiven if we categorized it thusly:

Consumers have been over-marketed to and creative burn-out has set in. The quality of the story is very poor at this point.

There is no brand switching taking place.

The choices of media fail to hit our emotional hot buttons.

The gate keepers think they’re the story.

Ms. Palin mentioned that she’s happier speaking directly to the American people and not through mainstream media celebrities too busy packaging their own brands to care about the “news.” Barack Obama bought a channel on Dish TV to continually run a 2 minute commercial, possibly until the end of time.

If we live in a time and place where we have access to the emotional impact of video, the immediacy of the internet, and the ubiquity of fact checking, it seems logical that a candidate might choose to promote their agenda and personal brand by meeting the public half-way.

Give us a daily, or twice weekly, video telling us what you want to say – talk about energy independence, talk about your views on market regulation, talk about national defense – and give us details. Five minutes of real content, not sound bytes. Give us links in the page that show us the congressional record supporting your statements and debunking, if necessary, those of your opponent. Let us hear the story, straight from you, without the gatekeepers. Treat us with enough respect to let us choose how deep we want to fact check – a little or a lot. And push everyone through your investments in traditional media expenditures towards your site, where your brand resides. Neither of the candidates do this on their respective sites today. Both push talking points, neither show objective proof, and neither speaks directly to their audiences.

Now, if we can pan back and refocus ourselves on the broader marketing agenda, we have more than a few enduring lessons to take away:

We are increasingly wary of gatekeepers, especially when we have the ability to speak directly to our own public with little help. Gatekeepers can – in some instances – imbue the brand with additional authority and credibility. Third party reviews meet this definition. The mainstream media? In politics? Not so much anymore.

We are all tired of propaganda. We want facts. And facts are so easy to check now. So be as transparent as you say you are by providing easy links to the source material that proves your point. If there is inconsistency, feel free to say why. But treat the public with respect. This will make you very unique in your market, regardless of what market you serve.

Use the best possible means to reach your audience. Video has become amazingly cheap with the advent of digital handheld camcorders and PC based editing. What used to cost $50K now costs $5K.

In a world of glitz and gloss, authenticity is the new “new.” Teach them how to learn the truth. Create experts, not evangelists.

Your mind is already made up for this election. If you’re a US citizen, you already know who you’re voting for. You made your decision largely on partisan – and purely on emotional – grounds, in all likelihood. Branding your product is more subtle and far less emotional than branding a future President of the United States. But wouldn’t we all be better off if we had the option of learning more before our emotional walls flew up?

Regards.

Note to CMO: Minding Your Capability Gap

2008-09-21T06:09:00.000-07:00

Dear CMO:

You need to begin a dialog with key stakeholders in a complex market, full of misunderstandings and competitors. You need to start a blog with multiple authors, clearly articulated roles for each writer, and enough discipline to ensure that solid content gets published early and often.

The problem is, everyone agrees and no one does it. The blog is launched and quickly gathers cobwebs.

You empower your channel marketing organization to curb sales entitlements, bringing facts and not feelings to the incremental lift you get out of channel investments. Your channel people know how to do it, attack it with energy, and have the facts to make the case stick.

The problem is, you've also decided to decentralize your divisions and give them enough autonomy to cut separate deals with your channel partners, effectively putting two cars in the parking lot. Not to mention, frustrate your channel marketing team's best efforts.

You correctly identify the Achilles Heel of your competition, taking advantage of their disintegrating channel relationships and their depleted field sales organization while promoting the strength of your own capabilities in the field. You launch a campaign aimed at face-to-face evangelism to C-level officers, driving mindshare and thought leadership -- plus actual feet on the street execution: something your competitors can't match.

The problem is, your field sales people are scared to death of calling on anyone with a title more senior than Junior Procurement Specialist. The thought of speaking directly, while making eye contact, with a C-level officer in a client location makes them weak in the knees.

Your paradigm-shifting SEM concept promises to change the face of how customers acquire qualified, branded leads, so your plan on orchestrating a thought-leadership forum with top-to-top communication with marketing leaders across multiple industries makes game-changing sense.

The problem is, your operational people are all in India and you're having one hell of a time managing even the simplest customer engagements. Let alone problems. Like when you over-bill a client 300% without telling them, all while failing to deliver what you promise.

You collect gigabytes of web sale data and create a zip code level demographic & psychographic analysis, showing where your best potential customers -- and retailers -- are located, down to a neighborhood level. You put a sales campaign together to put this learning to work, providing incentives and tools to ensure each and every step along the path is successful.

The problem is, the team just... isn't... ready... to do anything more complex than what they planned on doing today anyway. And it drags... on... for... months...

* * *

Key Takeaways:

> There are no strategic problems, only people problems. Each and every one of the above vignettes illustrates a situation where the pieces are in place and the job still doesn't get done. None, with the exception of the SEM example, are structural problems -- these are primarily cultural ones.

> There is no strategy where there is no execution. A brilliant strategy ill executed is far less successful than a middling strategy done well. Execution, in other words, is more important than brilliant thinking. All things being equal, coming up with a brilliant strategy and then executing against it seems to be the best of all possible worlds.

> If you don't control all the moving parts, reduce their quantity until you control all of them. How many times has a program hung up because a third party is late with a proposal, a quote, a contract, or some other critical component? When in doubt, make and don't buy. If you sales team isn't up to the task, have marketing make the face to face call. If you can't get a major brand to provide your value-added promotion, make it yourself. You'll save time, probably money, and whatever you lose in brand cache will be more than made up for by speed and execution.

* * *

The "capability gap" is the critical open ground between the right situation for the right company and its ability to execute it. Often, these gaps are focused on problems with structure -- the SEM example, where the needed (and lacking) operational people are on the wrong side of the world from your customers and lack the language and cultural training to make them adequate to the task. But more often, the gap is in the minds of the people you are relying on to get the job done -- the pieces of the structure that "fit," but don't "work."

How one deals with this in a business setting is more often than not an exercise in simplification and focus. Reducing your dependencies to a few carefully chosen resources is usually the right first step. The second is figuring out why the problem exists in the first place.

As a famous 20th Century philosopher once said, "Companies with communication problems don't need to communicate more -- they need to reduce the need to communicate." Another famous 20th Century philosopher said, "Just win, baby." Both are rules to live by.

Regards.

Note to CMO: Powerlines and When to Keep Them

2008-09-09T06:00:00.000-07:00

Dear CMO:

Brandweek tells us that Memorex is soon to launch its first branding effort since the 70's. Well, welcome back, in any case. What I find interesting is that Memorex has decided to change its tag line.

Quick -- close your eyes and tell me what Memorex's tag line is. Can you? Are you old enough to remember analog, type II, and 2-pack polybags? I am -- of course, I ran that part of Sony's marketing once upon a time, a long, long time ago.

Memorex is blessed with the one and only great tag line from the old recording media days. "Is it live, or is it Memorex?" still makes sense. Maxell had the image -- the man in the chair -- but Memorex had the words. And Sony had the brand halo. Sure, the product wasn't as good as Sony, or Maxell, or TDK, or even Fuji (not that anyone knew Fuji made probably the best recording media products on earth at the time), but for anyone who wasn't absolutely passionate about coercivity and retentivity, they remembered the tag line and bought the product. They owned the, "I really don't care which brand I buy" middle of the category.

Now, the tag line will be "Fits Your Life." Like jeans, Special K, home owners insurance, The Gap, Visa, Restoration Hardware, your Motorola cell phone, or virutally any other product category, Memorex apparently Fits My Life. Why does Memorex fit my life? How does a recording media product "fit" anything? At Sony, we launched CD-IT, the first audio tape that was available in CD lengths. We also launched UX Turbo, a type II audio tape that was built for in-car use: a shell that didn't warp under extreme heat conditions, a tactile button allowing you to find the A versus B side without looking, labels that had instantly adhering glue so they wouldn't peel off in your car stereo, and a tape formulation pitched higher to cut through the ambient road rumble. Sony "fit your life." Memorex?

* * *
Key Takeaways:

> Per Steve Cone's excellent Powerlines: "The More Things Change, The More Tag Lines Should Not. Lines that connect with employees and consumers are priceless. Their power builds over time and is impervious to the whims of fashion."

> Ego, boredom, and the fact that you just inherited a brand with a long standing and excellent tag line are not good reasons to change it. Expecially when you've got the only good one in your entire category.

* * *

Memorex is bored. They've been hearing, "Is it live?" since the 70's apparently, and because they've been exposed to a good thing for this long, they think everyone else is, too.

Frankly, none of us has even thought of the Memorex brand for forty years. And now that they're back, they've decided to water down the one thing they had going for them. A killer tag line.

I'm happy to be wrong, if someone can show me rock-solid quantitative testing that says, "Fits Your Life" is a more powerful tag line than "Is it live?" But I don't hold my breath.

Regards.

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

Note to CMO: Ocho Cinco and the New Frontier of Personal Branding

2008-09-08T06:00:00.000-07:00

Dear CMO:

This is the best branding news of the day. Maybe the year. In a world where stars of various reputation have branded themselves with pseudonyms -- from Cher and Bijan to Flea and Bono -- we now have Ocho Cinco.

Yes, that Ocho Cinco. The all pro wide receiver of the Cincinnati Bengals formerly-known-as-"Chad" has now legally changed his name to the Spanish translation of his jersey number and sometime nickname. Ocho Cinco Johnson. Like the difference between Madagascar Vanilla Bean Gelato and 'Nilla Ice Cream, apparently the Spanish version has more cache. William Arruda must be shedding a happy tear (or maybe just a tear, I'm not sure).

I feel diminished only having a "vanity" URL.

In honor of 85's bold personal branding move, I think a few of us in the blogosphere need to follow suit. I'd like to hear from Epiphany Kerley, Chaos Beck and Whack von Oech about their plans. I'd do the same, but CMO could be mispronounced "schmo," which isn't the hook I'm after.

Regards.

PS: Hat tip to Smoking Gun via Drudge. Photo courtesy of Flickr.

Note to CMO: Killing Giants, Influence, and Decision '08

2008-09-04T11:53:00.000-07:00

Dear CMO:

Politics and products both have the same needs, but live in different time frames. Where one is a sprint with a finish line – usually an election -- the other exists freely in space, proving its relevance over an extended period of time. This makes drawing parallels between the branding of politicians and of brands particularly difficult, because what works for a presidential nominee won’t necessarily work for your breakfast cereal or blogging platform. However, certain unalienable rights still exist: both need clear propositions, both need to be differentiated, and both need breakthrough.

Let’s look at the marketing of the current election in purely “influence”-laden terms:

Barack Obama = “Liking”

We choose to like Barack Obama because he is appealing to us. He plucks certain chords of optimism, of “change” and “hope,” and returns frequently to America’s love affair with “new.” We like new things here. We have a short attention span as a nation and a culture. Even if things are going well, there’s a certain gravitational pull of “new” that appeals to us, where in other cultures it might be seen as a negative. Here, it works.

John McCain = “authority”

We choose to like John McCain because we look up to him. We see him as an authority figure who has suffered for his country and has put it first for his entire adult life. We see experience, dedication, and leadership – all things we look for in a commander in chief. We like performance in America, and he delivers against this desire.

If we view our election in terms of the vocabulary we’re developing around Killing Giants, we have a different competitive view of each candidate:

Barack Obama = “Aikido”

Obama chooses to use his opponent’s strength against him, portraying “experience” – his own Achilles Heel – as a negative. The Obama strategy suggests “experience” = “old” = “not new” = “out of touch.” As he said in his acceptance speech, “John McCain… just doesn’t get it.”

John McCain = “Show Your Teeth”

McCain says bring it on. Let’s compare qualifications. Coke versus Pepsi. I’ve done it, you haven’t. Where Obama runs an adroit flanking maneuver, McCain launches a frontal assault.

What makes this election that much more complex, particularly in terms of these two views, is that the choices of running mates both aim squarely at the opponent’s strategy:

Joe Biden is running on authority, McCain’s strength and Obama’s weakness. As a matter of public record, Biden is the only Senator in Washington who has served longer than McCain, which muddles the argument of “experience versus inexperience” for the Republicans.

Sarah Palin, a relative unknown on the national stage, has burst out of the starting gates and seized both “liking” and “aikido” from her opponents -- Obama’s strength and McCain’s weakness. She’s smart, accomplished, funny, attractive, and very human. And, not for nothing, she’s a she: by attacking her, the Democrats further drive a wedge through their own party, half of whom are still smarting from the absence of Hillary Clinton on the ticket. Further, her perceived “inexperience” is a trap: she’s served in public life as long as Obama has, and in an executive capacity, both as a mayor and a governor of a state. She’s the physical embodiment of our “Thin Ice” strategy – leading her opponents out over the thin ice of her own making.

Forget the politics of the above. I couldn’t care less who you want to vote for or whether you have an opinion at all. This is a fascinating series of events, and holds tremendous messaging, marketing, and communication lessons for all of us.

Regards.

PS: if you haven't seen the discussion over at The Daily Fix, analyzing the messaging of each candidate's acceptance speeches, take a look -- the Dem's are already hashed out, and the GOP will be up on Friday. Thanks, CK, for organizing and providing the graphic, above, too.

Note to CMO: Beijing & Connecting Emotions to Actions

2008-08-25T10:33:00.000-07:00

Dear CMO:

The Beijing Olympiad scored a higher worldwide rating than any other television event since the great flood. Good for NBC for doing a great job both on air and via their website, for China for throwing a perfect party, and for the Olympians themselves who provided a new highlight reel of inspiring achievements for all of us. What did we learn?

1. We all thought China was the evil empire until the Evil Empire took center stage on opening night. The contrast phenomenon, played out on a world stage. It wasn’t too long ago that protesters disrupted the Olympic flame’s progress around the world; now, we’re watching as Soviet tanks roll into a sovereign country.

2. Trash talking sure is a slippery slope. Nes ce pas?

3. We all saw plenty of jackassing during the Winter games, with US athletes falling left and right whenever they incorrectly felt entitled to a medal. This US team looked very prepared and down to
business.

Lessons enough for a full post, but enough – let’s talk marketing for a moment. We saw millions upon millions spent by the likes of Coke, Bud, Lenovo, Visa, Home Depot, McDonalds, and others. We had Olympic sponsors, sponsors of individuals and teams that snuck in, and outliers. I won’t try to critique the entirety of the fortnight here, but a few grabbed my attention.

Commodity brands have a different problem than many: a payment system like Visa works the same way American Express or MasterCard does and is remarkable only when it fails. Connecting to the Olympics, and to the US Olympians and the team in general, taps into that brief moment that happens once every four years where we actively and sincerely care about helping our athletes excel. This is a meaningful call to action. Good on them. Plus, their commercials were beautifully done and served as fine art for the broadcasts.

Lenovo – a Chinese brand, not for nothing – makes an outstanding PC with differentiating features, several of which were presented during the Games (heavyweight feature sets without the ‘heavy as a sewer lid’ chassis, one-button crash protection). I’m a big fan of metaphors ever since reading Gerald Zaltman's "What Customers Think." But truth be told, I like my metaphors, like my trash talking, at a more subtle level.

The most memorable (marketing) moment of the Games was the wonderful Nike ad with Marvin Gaye singing the national anthem. Forget the fact that this is an iconic singer, now deceased, singing the song we expect to hear when America stands atop the podium. When viewed in the broader context -- this place and time, these people assembled for this purpose, practicing (not playing), with this song being sung by this person -- the spot is very powerful. Marvin Gaye's singing of the national anthem allows us to hear it anew and reflect on its meaning and how these words relate to this moment in history - both on and off the basketball court. I've linked to the full 2:30 length version here, and it's worth seeing if you haven't already.

* * *
Key Takeaways:

> Sponsorships, branding, and all investment in marketing needs to be grounded in what we want our consumers to do today, right now. Bringing it home and giving customers a reason to act today is what defines high ROI campaigns from unsupported "buzz."

> Metaphors tap our deepest psychological beliefs and are some of the most powerful branding tools we have at our disposal. If done well, that is.

* * *

There’s more to talk about when we reflect as marketers on the Beijing Olympiad. What did you take away?

Regards.

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

Note to CMO: Separating Leaders from Ideas (and the Aikido of Consistency)

2008-08-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

Dear CMO:

Once our snap judgments paint the Rorschach test-like image of a person or an idea in our minds, it’s hard for us to objectively change our minds. If a new player is deemed to be “good,” then they are given wider latitude and their actions are viewed with more forgiveness than those deemed, “not so good.” Interestingly, once our snap judgments have solidified, our mental frameworks require that our subjects behave in a manner consistent with our own preconceptions: it’s easy to understand that we’re angry and conflicted when our so labeled “good” person behaves in a “not so good” way. What’s harder to understand, given a moment’s objective reflection, is that we are equally conflicted when a C- player turns in A+ work. We don’t expect it, we can’t easily process it, so we kick it out of our mental systems. You’d think we’d be smarter than this, but frankly, we’re not.

Furthermore, we’re all wired to be consistent. We are affected by significant personal and interpersonal pressure when we deviate from a public stance. We don’t like to do it and we’re instantly called on it when we do (are we in a political season right now?). So the idea of “change” is a highly charged one. We feel a need to make our mark, yet those of us not leading change may find a hard-wired reluctance to accept a shift in direction as suggested by another – particularly a new guy, particularly in marketing.

This takes on deeper significance when we look at ideas and the leaders that champion them. Marketers are idea people. If the average CMO lasts less than two years, this is probably why. Lewis had an interesting discussion at his blog this week that sparked this thought, and it resonates with other discussions I’ve had over the past few weeks. Often, the bigger the idea, the worse it is for the person bringing it to the table. Big ideas – often great ideas that can ignite a moribund company and turn around a failing enterprise – are often buried in corporate hubris because they “aren’t invented here.” Ideas, and those presenting them, are alien and hostile to our own consistency.

Let’s step back for a moment and consider this – and please forgive my lack of footnotes on this subject, as the original texts and studies that I’ve come across that illustrate many of these points are out there somewhere, just not linked here – and perhaps even find a way out for those of us who do consider ourselves to be fairly creative. If consistency itself is to blame for our DNA-level resistance to changes in direction, could we not use consistency itself to get ourselves out again? I think so. Here’s how.

· Any change we champion should, if properly constructed, mirror the needs of the company. Deciding “we’re sinking, and only I can save us,” is not the kind of thinking that will win many converts. Understanding and synthesizing that “we need to penetrate the office market with enterprise-quality mobility solutions,” is the kind of thinking that will keep you on solid ground.

· Any change we champion should also mirror the strategic direction – however conceptually described – of the CEO and Board. Knowing that management has specifically, publicly, clearly stated that improving inventory turns is an important acknowledgement, particularly when your idea can help achieve the goal.

· Bold ideas that don’t conform to the needs of the company (in our own opinions) or to the goals of the management of the company can be considered “interesting ideas” at best and “wild goose chases” at worst. Perhaps we should treat them – and frame them – as such. These are ideas that are presented one to one, properly couched in the right settings and with the right words, so as not to completely jump from terra firma onto the ice flow of your unsupported idea.

· Bold ideas that do conform to the needs of the company and leadership are to be treated very carefully: bursting into the board room full of adrenaline and vinegar (to paraphrase) is a sure fire way to get shot at a later date. No one else will share your enthusiasm, but many will enjoy your funeral.

· Carefully constructing the framing of your idea is a more important implementation plan than your idea’s roll-out. Specifically, how will you remind everyone of their previously stated goals and objectives? It should be simple enough if you’ve got a mission statement, an annual report, or a budget deck that lays these ideas out. How will you focus everyone’s attention on the specific square inch of intellectual real estate that you intend to revolutionize? How will you prime your audience as to the extreme need to fix the problem that you’ve just solved? And over what period of time will you bring people into this frame of mind?

Launching dangerously provocative ideas is more like chiropractic therapy and less like surgery than many think. Sure, we’re all in love with speed, unless it’s someone else’s idea. Then, we’re the soul of caution.

We’re all slaves of corporate culture, hierarchical thinking, and our own psychological wiring – most of which hasn’t changed since we descended from the trees. We want the troop to be strong – so long as we don’t lose our position within it. And renegades that emerge from the pack and challenge our carefully constructed social structures don’t last long in the wild, unless, of course, they emerge in such a way that they threaten no one and are viewed as “good,” and not as “dangerous.”

Regards.

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

Note to CMO: The Dubious Strategy of Apologies and Retractions

2008-08-04T08:00:00.000-07:00

Dear CMO:

We're marketers. We're edgy. We love cool, we live hip, and swing for the upper deck. That's why we usually dress in black, which is a subject for another post on another day. But this is also why we love to go out on the absolute edge of creative license and pick up our customers by their narrow lapels and shake them out of their DVR-induced stupor. Breakthrough. Edgy.

Unless anyone gets offended, of course, in which case we'll apologize and pull the ad, pronto.

Am I the only one in the room who says we should never, ever apologize for our work? Look. One of two things usually happens. The first is that we didn't do our homework up front. We created a piece of work that didn't just fail to resonate with our audience, it actually made them angry. That's a not very fine line. That's called "blowing it completely" by many, including the CEO. The second likely reason is that we're just spineless wusses. We did our homework, created solid work that sold who we are and who we're not -- and when a group of people who don't even buy our products complains, we retreat like a pack of yelping Chihuahuas.

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DISCLAIMER:

NO CHIHUAHUAS, ACTUAL OR VIRTUAL, WERE HARMED IN THE IDEATION, CREATION OR PUBLICATION OF THIS BLOG POST. VIVA LA CHIHUAHUA. YO QUIERO TACO BELL.

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Thankfully, here at Note to CMO, we buy Offensive Post Offsets, allowing us the latitude to put up posts like this one. Other bloggers, often in the developing world, will then write less incendiary posts to balance the blogosphere out a little. It seems to work fine and is completely above board, so I'm told, so I can't see what's wrong with that.

* * *

Key Takeaways:

> Messaging isn't accidental. At least it shouldn't be. If you've done your homework, stayed on message, and tested your creative, you shouldn't have much to fear. If you haven't, then you've left yourself open, haven't you?

> Understand that special interest groups are well organized and can generate more emails based on less understanding than in any other time in history. Look at the Verizon ad again. Urban junk yard pit bulls are chained up for a good reason. Is this really offensive, PETA? Really?

> You stand to gain more by sticking to your guns than by surrendering to the appearance of resistance. Backing down rarely wins converts. So it's important to actually do your homework up front, isn't it?

* * *

Clearly, this past week has seen more than the average number of full scale retreats. Ad Age and others have mentioned the not very high profile campaigns by Snickers, Nike and Verizon that have been pulled in the face of complaints vaguely associated with the complainers. After looking at all of them, I still don't get it.

If you're apologizing, you didn't do your homework.

Regards.

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

Note to CMO: Virtuality and Actuality

2008-07-21T21:08:00.000-07:00

Dear CMO:

I read an interesting piece on the powerful sweep of "clean" tech companies that rely on not flying you across the world for your next meeting, refering to the teleconferencers, webinar-providers, and other alternatives to being there.

Replace your client meetings with phone calls, your presentations with webinars, your trade shows with large scale On24-hosted e-vents.

There's a reality here that's hard to ignore. Companies like Polycom, Webex/Cisco, and On24 have benefited from a down economy, the cost of fuel, and the burn-out we've all experienced from that last trip to Shenzhen. But something critical is missing. I won't take you to the absurd extreme, because this isn't a black & white issue. But there's a cultural divide, equally national, corporate, and personal, that impacts the decision to meet virtually rather than actually.

I had a drink with an old friend from grad school who's been deep in leasing and finance since graduation. He told a great story of a client in Brazil who didn't want to do the deal on the phone, requiring him to fly from NY to Sao Paulo, round trip, for a one hour meeting.

I'm helping a client expand their footprint in Japan right now. I lived in Tokyo for many years back in the '80's and actually did some techical interpreting back in the day. Coming back to this after so many years, I forgot how non-email-centric the Japanese culture is. Phone calls aren't good enough, either. It's personal introductions, followed by (as one colleague so aptly put it) "at least five face to face meetings before they decide they like you."

Two completely different cultures -- one where they're kissing you on both cheeks upon meeting you for the first time and the other where shaking hands is considered exotic -- and both rely very much on face to face. We Americans, on the other hand, are completely comfortable in a purely virtual world. Email beats phone calls.

* * *

Key Takeaways:

> Liking, as we say in the science of influence, means we prefer to do business with those we know and like. We also tend to go with those who are as similar to us as possible, all things being equal. Similar names, home towns, genetics. And not all of this translates over Outlook.

> We are judged as businesspeople by our ability to get things done through people -- our own people and those we cannot control, from our channel partners to our end users out there... beyond the footlights. If we rely on "liking" to help us build our relationships, we must transfer more than just the facts. We need to share. We share facial expressions, body language, seemingly extraneous facts, and our general stream of consciousness. This is a powerful endorsement of face to face communication -- and when we can't do this, we still need to communicate. Did someone just say 'social media'?

* * *

If there is a greater need to communicate -- and to influence -- then it's incumbent upon us as marketers to find the best ways to get more than just the facts out when we do.

Regards.

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

Note to CMO: Experts, Raffa, and the Other Michelangelo

2008-07-13T15:56:00.000-07:00

Dear CMO:

Two blogs of note pushed me into this frame of mind today -- Jennifer's recent post over at Brains on Fire and Valeria's always good insights at Conversation Agent. Jennifer discussed the recent Wimbledon finals from a non-player's perspective. Valeria just happens to love Caravaggio. For the rest of us, please pick up your pencils and write down the following:

What do you see in this picture above? Thoughts, feelings, impressions, obervations, everything. You fall into one of two camps, if you're like most people.

The first group will say, in so many words, "this looks like my grandmother's curtains." The second group will say, again in so many words, "this is a masterpiece." What's the difference between them? It isn't taste, or education, or a proclivity to ask the next driver for your Grey Poupon. It's knowledge, and an appreciation for it.

I came across Peter Robb's excellent detective story, "M: the Man Who Would Become Caravaggio," telling the life of the artist Michelangelo Merisi. In it, he not only tells the somewhat sordid and unexpectedly violent life of a Renaissance artist, brawler and habitual drunkard, but dissects each surviving work still existing.

The picture, above, is the "Basket of Fruit," not surprisingly. It is the first still life acknowledged to be painted "from life." Nor is it a happy picture. The fruit is in varying states of ripeness, some showing obvious signs of rot. It is shown against a blank wall, not in the context of a landscape or other complex background. The shelf upon which it sits appears to be jutting out in an almost three dimensional manner towards the viewer. For an artist in 1597, these are all revolutionary acts.

To me, it's a masterpiece. It's been my computer's wallpaper, off and on, for years. Something about the juxtaposition of a Renaissance still life on a laptop display always gets a comment from someone in the room. But to me, it's a masterpiece because I've learned more about it than the average casual observer, in a way that was engaging and personal to me. I'm not an art historian by any means, but I can wax poetic on this particular piece.

I've become an expert in a narrowly defined field, and because of it, I care more deeply about it.

* * *
Key Takeaways:

> We care more deeply about things we learn about. We love things we learn to do well. We teach what we know to others who also enjoy learning. We can't help it, we're gregarious, social people and we like to share.

> If we teach people about the inner game of our products and services in a way that is engaging and personal, we have the very real opportunity to become masterpieces in their eyes. This isn't an entitlement -- we still need to produce works of excellence, and still need to appeal to our audiences in ways that are as engaging and personal as possible. But we have a better than average chance.

> Engaging means relevant, expert, helpful, and (importantly) entertaining. Entertaining doesn't mean slapstick. It means the participant has fun engaging with your brand.

> Personal means directed in a shared and trusted environment to one person who feels that attention is being paid to them and their particular pace, needs and level of understanding.

* * *

In the language of influence, we're employing reciprocity -- giving the gift of knowledge for which a social contract is subtly being built, in order to create a legion of exclusivity, sharing knowledge that is not commonly available to all.

What does this mean to us in our marketing roles? How do you create experts?

Regards.

The Yin and Yang of Retail

2008-07-07T21:34:00.000-07:00

Dear CMO:

I hate it when retailers tell me what I can’t do.

I hate hearing that they’ve got a “clean floor policy” and that my signage doesn’t match their color scheme.

I hate hearing that they won’t accept value-added promotions because they’d rather have us pass the savings on to them. I’d rather play in the NBA, frankly, but nobody asked me. For now, I’d rather just sell more of my stuff.

And I really hate having to put my product in their standardized clamshell packaging so that it virtually disappears on the planogram, leaving the price tag as the Cheshire Cat-like last visible point of differentiation.

So let’s pause for a moment. It may not be apparent through my naturally restrained choice of words, but I am biased. I spent most of my formative youth marketing consumer technology products through US retail, so I can’t help it. But, in the spirit of being “a uniter, not a divider,” I will bravely cross the aisle and embrace the unfamiliar to argue against my better judgment. Not to mention my best interests.

Why would I stop a vendor from shipping displays, running promotions and changing packaging? Because I don’t trust that they know what they’re doing. I’ve seen too many hastily designed displays, too many promotions that build up like expired plaque on my planogram, and too much packaging that shows how little they understand the value of real estate. From here, it’s a short leap to understand why I’d ask for “just hand me the check book” entitlement programs. Entitlements are insurance policies against vendor marketing failures. Pay me up-front. I expect you to fail.

All this makes sense until a brand shows me that they understand what I do for a living and then proves it. Show me quantitative packaging and promotion research measured against your end users who shop in my stores. Show me how you’ll forecast it, ship it, sell it through, and then clean it up after it’s done. If you can do this, I’ll test anything you want because I’ll believe that you know what you’re doing and you won’t make a complete mess of the one thing I have that you don’t – my stores.

Here’s a quick story that animates the point. At Sony in the mid-90’s, we were drowning in the blank VHS cassette business. Price erosion was 20%, we had over 100 competitors, and sell through jumped 1,000% on ad. A pure commodity business. And we were losing $20 million a year. Within a year, our #1 share position was twice that of the #2 player, we had a price premium, and we were profitable. How? Here’s how.

First, we raised our prices by 15% to give ourselves breathing room. Then, we reinvested that money into consumer promotion and packaging to boost our turns. Lastly, we delivered world-class account management, providing space management, syndicated data, and quarterly category business reviews.

The retailers that stayed with us after the price hike saw significantly bigger returns on inventory investment. Our volume dipped by 40% during fiscal ’95 and rebounded to a record year in ’96, culminating in Target running national television supporting our holiday promotion and naming us their “Vendor of the Year.”

We developed an audacious plan, quantified every packaging change and consumer promotion, and sold our retailers on facts, not feelings. We proved ourselves to our retailers, every step of the way. “Our drills were bloodless battles, our battles bloody drills.”

So it’s about trust. Trust is earned, often through painful and contentious experience. There is natural friction between vendor and retailer, just like there is between sales and marketing, Democrats and Republicans, and dogs and cats.

Vendors and retailers can both make money when more product is moving across the scanner, faster. There. That’s it. Simple. The difference is that it doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game.

Regards.

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

Note to CMO: Somebody's Getting Smarter

2008-06-30T21:11:00.000-07:00

Dear CMO:

To Hollywood watchers, this is all old news, but as I haven't been a Hollywood watcher for a few years, it's news to me. And both are great marketing ploys, so can we enjoy a few great programs in progress?

Paramount Pictures launches Booty Sweat, a sports drink that would be fake except for the fact that they're doing it, to support their upcoming film, Tropic Thunder. For all of you in the audience pondering product placement, this is an existential moment. We are not putting product in the film. The film is putting product out there for us. Distribution plans, per Ad Age, are limited to typical music and DVD storefronts, which is a shame. Let's hope it gets out where it can provide more impressions than a TV flight.

Warner is following up Get Smart with Get Smarter -- a direct to DVD spin-off, leveraging the supporting talents of the two hopelessly geeky analysts from the film, plus Hymie, played by Putty from Seinfeld. Did the DVD cost a hundred million to shoot? Probably not. Did it cost one million? (I should have said, "would you believe... one million...?") Probably closer. Will it make money, riding the coattails of the top movie in the country? Probably yes.

Roger would shuffle the deck and pull out a card right about now. How about something along the lines of "Change Viewpoints?"

"Remember: the second assault on the same problem should come from a different direction."

* * *
Key Takeaways:

> We fall into patterns. What can happen when we reverse our field of view and see things from our customer's viewpoint -- or reverse the definition of which brand belongs in which setting -- we can end up with some very transformative marketing.

* * *

Makes sense, doesn't it?

Regards.

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

Note to CMO: Experts Redux

2008-06-16T17:48:00.000-07:00

Dear CMO:

Do you know what a skip tooth chain is? If you own a chainsaw, a skip tooth chain is a steak knife. It cuts at roughly twice the speed of the comparatively meek sounding "homeowner's chain."

Why did I have to learn about this from the guy who trims my trees? (Just for the record, I'm very comfortable with the contention that somebody else -- other than me -- should climb thirty feet in the air and cut off several hundred pounds of wood with a handheld buzz saw). Why didn't I learn about this from my chainsaw manufacturer? Or from my retailer? The guy who taught me what it was, how to cut hanging logs, how to unjam and sharpen and adjust my chainsaw wasn't a guy who stood to gain anything. The people who stood to gain didn't do anything.

My second story is a little sillier. I got an angry fax from the manufacturer of my second favorite watch. It's in for repairs for the simple reason that it stopped working. When you spend many thousands of dollars for a watch, you expect it to work. So imagine my surprise to get an angry fax from them, reprimanding me over the condition of the watch. That I just sent to them. Because it wasn't working. I'm not crazy about the condition either, specifically the part about it not actually telling time at this particular time.

They've got it for the next sixteen weeks -- sixteen weeks! -- to disassemble it, blow on it gently, massage the gears, and reassemble it. If I don't have my second favorite watch for sixteen weeks, what am I going to wear on my wrist? Said another way, why is my second favorite watch company not sending me another watch to wear -- maybe a slightly higher end one, maybe one I'd learn, over the next four months, that I simply, postively, absolutely couldn't live without? What are you guys thinking? Oh, wait -- I remember -- you're thinking that you're disappointed in the condition of the watch of yours. You know, the one that I bought from you.

* * *

Key Takeaways:

> How could Stihl make every homeowner an expert in handling chain saws? A skip tooth chain is an upgrade. A pole saw is an additional purchase. A neighbor is a new customer. A dealer is a teacher. Knowledge spreads like rings in the water.

> If you were the marketing chief at Jaeger LeCoultre, how would you get your customers to buy more very expensive watches? Would you find ways to get more watches onto the wrists of people who love watches -- their watches, in particular? Would you take a page from every auto repair shop in the country and send them postcards telling them it's time to get their watch cleaned -- just to make an excuse to start a new conversation? Yes, you'd need a pool of loaners, few of which would stay loaners for long. But that's body and fender work.

* * *

If you marketed $20,000 Wolf (semi-) commercial ranges to contractors, decorators and home owners, would you send people post-cards and send them to cooking school? You know, probably not. Why? People don't use their commercial ranges. We do. The guy who fixes them out here on the Central Coast of California -- and we broke one of our burners, naturally -- was shocked to see signs of actual use on these expensive paper weights. They work beautifully, but they're not meant to be used.

Why does this make some sort of sense? You buy a Wolf Range for your home's resale value. And you usually don't decide later to throw in a plate warmer and a wine rack cooler on impulse, unless your impulses run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

If you market a product that has legs, that has an upgrade path, that could lead to friends and neighbors to come by to learn from an expert, then it's your job as a marketer to make experts happen as often as they can.

Regards.

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

Note to CMO: The Pitfalls of Consistency (or, Learning to Love Your Hubris)

2008-06-10T09:35:00.000-07:00

Dear CMO:

I've heard three pieces of good news over the past few weeks. First, I understand that the feared AIDS epidemic within the heterosexual communities of developed countries is no longer a threat, according to the World Health Organization. Second, I learned that not only is the US not in a recession but that the economy grew 0.9% in the last quarter. And third, I learned from the Director of the CIA that the war on terror in Iraq, and against Al Qaeda in particular, is basically over (and that we, the good guys, won). All things considered, this is pretty good news, don't you think?

Does it strike you as curious that none of these stories have made the front page, literally or figuratively? I think I know why. And don't worry, I'll bring it back onto solid marketing ground shortly.

We are creatures of habit. We desperately do our best to act in a consistent manner. When we don't, we feel personal and societal pressure to revert back to our previously taken positions. When the major media decide that we're in a recession -- actual definitions aside -- they find it virually impossible to say we're not. This combination of arrogance and inflexibility is what the ancient Greeks called hubris.

I had a conversation the other day with a client who referenced a colleague's thesis that described how even with actionable competitive intelligence extracted from top tier competitors, most companies do not change their strategy or tactics to take advantage of it. Even when we find the enemy's battle plans in the trash can, we don't change our strategy. We may read it, second guess it, or tell ourselves smugly that we already knew it -- but we rarely do anything that we hadn't planned already to do.

Gerald Zaltman makes the point in his excellent What Customers Think that the vast majority of marketing research is done to validate previously developed preconceptions. We do research not for insight: we do it to prove to others that we were right all along, and we cut corners and squint at the data until the trends we walked into the room with begin to emerge, regardless of how tenuous the connections appear to be.

* * *
Key Takeaways:

> We have a deep psychological need to be consistent with previously taken positions, even when those postions no longer hold any relevance. This can get us into trouble, make us look foolish, and blind us to new possibilities. And if this is true of us, it's true of others, too.

> We can't undo several millenia of neural programming and change how we think -- after all, we'd just appear 'flaky' to our friends -- but we can acknowledge that "consistency happens," which is often enough to shed light into those blind corners long enough to open us up to new possibilities.

* * *

In the language of influence that we've discussed, this idea touches upon several key principles of persuasion:

Consistency: we have a deep need to be consistent with stances we've taken.

Liking: telling your target that they have always had an open mind -- assuming they have -- is more than just idle flattery. You are building a relationship.

Reciprocity: by giving an unexpected and highly relevant gift -- the ability to gracefully accept new information and opening your target up to more options without appearing socially foolish, you've sown the seeds of a reciprocal "gift."

Authority: Let's assume you begin your counter argument by retreating and arguing against your own best interests: "I realize you've already make commitments to do X, which I can fully understand and respect, so I won't try to overwhelm you with facts and figures... you've clearly gone down this path before... but I think the real reason we should consider Z comes from your position on Y, which feels very similar to the proposal we're discussing..."

Helping intransigent targets of our influence get out of the psychological corner they've painted themselves into is something you should see as a gift, not as manipulation. If previous statements have gulag-ed your listener to be psychologically predisposed to reject your idea, perhaps the answer lies in building a bridge from their isolated position today, through other positions they've taken (philosophies, problems solved in the past, etc.), to the newer and safer ground of your mutual interests. After all, remember that there are always other options and we've all made countless public positions that we can use as examples.

Ask yourself: how many interesting options and possibilities do I reject every day because they don't reside squarely in the little corner I've painted myself into?

Regards.

(Photo courtesy of Flickr)

Note to CMO: Experts Beat Evangelists

2008-06-08T17:48:00.001-07:00

Dear CMO:

We've discussed the role that highly engaged users play in your brand ecosystem. Throw a virtual rock in the blogosphere and you'll hit three posts that are all a-Twitter over evangelists and why creating them is so smart. And don't get me started about blogs about blogging. Not many talk about the "how," though, and that's a missing piece of an important puzzle, so let me throw a crumb out on the water for your evaluation.

The best way to create an over-class of super-human proto-users, to whom all uninitiated will flock for informed and credible advice, is not to try to create evangelists -- after all, evangelism is a state of being chosen by the individual, not by you, the humble brander -- but to create experts.

Creating experts does several things, all of them important. You transfer knowledge, teach teachable (and learnable) skills that make using your product more enjoyable, push the experience further and faster down the learning curve, create peer groups of super-users, and create a culture of exclusivity amongst the best of all possible users -- the ones who care the most.

Creating evangelists is like launching a "viral video." It's up to everyone other than you to define whether your "video" is, in fact, "viral." So, it stands to reason that you can a) want evangelists, b) tell people you'd like it if they were evangelists, c) give them various incentives and tools to become evangelists, and lastly, d) hope that they will, in fact, begin to act like evangelists. But you're fishing in waters where you have little proof that there are any fish.

Experts don't rely on chance any more than a master angler would tie a brick to a rope and call it bait.

* * *
Key Takeaways:

> Creating experts creates evangelists, many with super-human powers.

> Experts are the best possible "evangelists" because they just know more, speak with more authority, and have more credibility.

> The best "expert" training comes with knowledge not covered casually in the manual or the website and should be credentialled -- credentials equal authority, and authority means exclusivity. And we like exclusivity.

> Most importantly, you can create an expert -- you can't create an evangelist.

* * *

Examples abound of expert-making done well. I wrote some time back about Audi's Advanced Handling Course (at the time taught by the Panoz Racing School, now purchased by Skip Barber). The recently promoted Travel Video Bootcamp from The Travel Channel hits this squarely and looks to be an outstanding idea. I'm sure there are others.

Look critically at your own product or service. How could you teach a self-selecting group to be super-users? What would a national footprint of experts do for you?

Regards.

(Photo courtesy of Flickr)

Note to CMO: Branding is Never Enough

2008-05-28T11:42:00.000-07:00

Dear CMO:

The problem with new branding initiatives is that they very often confuse non-marketing people. We get it because this is what we do and how we think. Many others see them as words in a document that they never actually got around to reading after the off-site. Frankly, most would admit that they were never quite sure what kind of feedback you were expecting, even if you asked. They’re not to blame, either.

Branding isn’t enough.

As the Buddha said, action must follow thought. A branding initiative that lays out properly defined positioning, a powerful vision statement and other branding deliverables are all needed steps in putting a brand on the right path – but these are thoughts, not actions. The marketers amongst us may push back at this statement, suggesting, “It’s obvious that the next steps we take are in these newly defined footsteps, isn’t it?” Well, no – and for several great reasons. What next steps are needed at this point? Give ten people the same branding elements and they’ll come up with ten compelling directions, some of which may overlap. What constitutes a “step”? Who is on board with this step? And do we all agree with it?

I spend a lot of time in my consulting life at this proverbial fork in the road, helping tease out the critical and often missing step that comes after the ink dries on the branding work. It requires the CEO, the functional heads, and sometimes smart people from outside the organization to lend perspective: we need to choose which three to five major ideas will best breathe life into the new branding work we’ve just completed.

Strategy must follow branding as action follows thought. Formulating these three to five big ideas is the work of a small number of highly interested people who can help plot the course of the company over the next twelve months. If you’re bringing style to life with kids, or helping people get back to their lives after financial disaster, or bringing the personalization of the web to television, what are the three things that need to happen to begin this journey? How does each functional head contribute to these three to five major initiatives? Once the top down strategies are in place, the execution can be well developed from the bottom up.

There. We’ve just closed the loop – thought, action, and execution, all accomplished with buy-in and passion. Direction is set, everyone knows why they’re doing what they’re doing, and nobody feels like they’re stuck handling details, minutiae and herding cats.

Don’t stop at branding – it’s never enough.

Regards.

(Photo courtesy of Flickr)

Note to CMO: Making it Easier to Get to "Yes"

2008-05-21T20:55:00.000-07:00

Dear CMO:

Are we in a recession? No? It feels like it. Probably because the media believes that any economic growth less than "exuberant" means we're heading for the breadlines and soup kitchens. Anyway. Let's agree that everyone in a position to buy whatever it is you sell is nervous right now, so selling is harder than it was a year ago.

We've read and written quite a bit over these past few months on how to market in a recession. A rush to accountability, the rise of SEM as a viable budgetary alternative to Big Advertising, etc. But apart from the major tactical issues, I ran across a very well made point by Michael Port that bears repeating. Assuming you're selling something more complex than anything hanging on a clip strip at Seven Eleven, think long and hard about how you can make it easier to get a "yes."

What does this mean to a marketer? Don't try to rush the sale when your buyers are cutting back and you're likely to have a lower conversion rate. Go for a higher conversion rate on an easier close. Break it down for your customer.

Can I get you to visit my blog?
Can I get you to download a podcast or white paper?
How about attend a webinar?
Can I get you to accept a trial version? A sample? A free consultation?
Can I sell you one -- with a money back guarantee -- instead of an enterprise level installation?

What are the easiest steps you can take to make it easy for them to say "yes?"

For a consumer marketer, think more like a B2B marketer: complex sales have different stages, different needs, different influencers, so hit them all.

For a B2B marketer, think more like a consumer marketer: how can I sample, how can I trade up, how can I disaggregate the whole and win one step at a time?

Making it easy (or at least easier) taps into our built-in decision triggers related to consistency -- we are more apt to do what we've done in the past. Consistency is a core principle of influence -- if you've read past posts on influence that relate to Dr. Robert Cialdini, you've seen these examples time and time again. Making it easy to begin a relationship, for example, makes it easier to continue it.

Good, solid advice for times of uncertainty.

Regards.

(Photo courtesy of Flickr).

Note to CMO: 3 Marketing Lessons from Natan Sharansky

2008-05-13T22:04:00.001-07:00

Dear CMO:

The Case for Democracy is hardly a standard marketing textbook. But then again, we said that about Mao's On Guerrilla Warfare and about Seneca's letters, so it's in good company. Sharansky discusses his own experiences in exile within the old Soviet Union as well as his reflections on geopolitics in general in this book, and its worth a read. It's been a while since I read it, but it literally fell off a bookshelf in my home and hit me the other day, so I felt compelled to say something about it. And, as with most books which discuss conflict in its various forms, marketing lessons -- in this case, very good ones -- begin to emerge. What marketing lessons can we draw from Natan Sharansky? Here's three.

1. Don't appease. Defeat.

Buying a competitor because it adds scale or because they happen to have distribution that you could easily compete for and win is a waste of time and money. Compete and win.

If a competitor has something you truly don't have, can't build, or won't succeed in accomplishing on your own, ask yourself a few important questions, starting with, "do I have the right people handling the problem." If you're in Best Buy and you buy another vendor at Best Buy because, heck, you'd like to have more space at Best Buy, reconsider your plan. Just earn more of the planogram by providing a better return.

2. Detente doesn't work when your business is on the line.

It's great for everyone to get along. All things being equal, it's nice when everyone is nice. This doesn't always happen. Channel partners demand more than you're willing to give and some knucklehead whose income is largely derived from the health and well being of that same channel partner will sputter, "the customer is always right!" which is usually wrong. More on this another time, but suffice it to say that channel partners and customers are not the same thing.

Hard decisions need to be made, both inside the company and out. And while there's no need for unprofessional or otherwise antisocial behavior, you have to be willing to make hard decisions and be OK with not being liked sometimes. If I have my antiquities quote correct, it was Marcus Aurellius who said, "it is the fate of leaders to provide for the people, and be hated for it."

3. Fear based cultures fail.

I'm aware of a Silicon Valley company that has gone through eight marketing chiefs in four years. We've all worked at a company, or had a boss, or knew a guy who knew a guy who believed that fear was a positive motivator and that better results came from people who didn't know where they stood.

Fortunately, there's a whole body of research that supports why that guy needs to get fired. Fear based cultures fail because they never gain mindshare, never tap into people's creativity, never retain enough loyalty to gut it out when things aren't going well, and never achieve enough team cohesion to produce the results that happen when people are at cause for their teams and companies. Open societies and cultures also throw off open debate, sometimes heated, but always aimed at a purpose that is in everyone's best interests. It is a generative argument, not the other kind. Better results come from passionate people working together than isolated people working against their co-workers.

These are archetypal lessons that happen to apply to a life of marketing and of leadership in general. If you're a fan of the book, I'm sure you'll find more of the same.

Regards.

(Photo courtesy of Flickr)

Note to CMO: Spotting the "Tell"

2008-05-09T14:21:00.000-07:00

Dear CMO:

Do you play poker? Ever since poker became a spectator sport, it’s kind of lost a bit of its luster for me, but my ten year old loves Texas Hold ‘Em. He’s all in, all the time. Sometimes, he won’t even look at his cards. Of course, he knows he’s playing with me, so there’s little downside to this particular game. When I play with him, I always know when he’s got a good hand. Most ten year olds don’t have great ‘game faces’ when they play for pretend money.

He has, as they say, a tell. He stretches his face downward with his other hand, as it to stop himself from smiling. He might as well show me his hand because while I may not know what he’s got, I know he’s got something.

How many ‘tells’ do you come across in a day’s work?

The answer, in all probability, is ‘more than either of us could probably count, even if we were paying attention.’ This can be fairly innocuous in most cases – maybe my direct report has a problem with a program that they really don’t want to bring up right now, hoping that they’ll fix it before I find out about it, thus the breezy communication style with the lack of eye contact. But when you need to know, you really need to know – and you really need to look for the ‘tell.’ What do you look for?

An ad agency that dismissively waves off the idea of testing their creative.

An online agency whose website isn’t absolutely top notch.

A search engine marketing company that can’t be found in the first dozen pages on any search engine.

A promotional agency that makes promises but has no testimonials backing them up.

These are signs of the mental light lifting that happens often with B2B services. We want to believe them, because the story is wonderful. “Really? You can execute this campaign in twenty-two countries across the globe? Well, that’s what I need, so great!” Not so fast. “Have you ever actually been to Russia? Have you ever launched a campaign in India before?” The third to fourth question usually separates the reality from the chaff.

We love great stories. But we need to look for the ‘tell’ because there are people around us who may not be trying to actively fool us – let’s give them the benefit of the doubt, after all – but that may simply be looking for either an easy job or a chance to learn whether they can actually do what they say they can do on your nickel.

I’ve been burned before – pretty badly, once or twice – but with experience comes a more practiced eye for spotting the ‘tell.’

As Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s, once said to us, “Never trust a skinny ice cream guy.” Enough said.

Regards.

(Photo courtesy of Flickr under Creative Commons)

Note to CMO: Creativity versus Creation

2008-04-29T08:56:00.000-07:00

Dear CMO:

If you're tired of the conversation that starts, "... I wonder what the Future of Marketing will look like," or maybe, "... what do YOU think marketing's role is in the modern corporation..." you'd be forgiven. I'd understand completely. I'm sick of it, too. We talked about this back in the day when we described the Marketing Mea Culpa and a few others, now that I think about it.

All that being said, let's talk about the future of marketers. That's a more personal approach to this whole eye-rolling subject. Here's a thought, so hear me out -- and tell me if you like this or not:

The more time I spend consulting with friends still in the big corporate world, the more I wonder what the practical future of marketing is; we all know what we think when we’re dreaming, but when we snap out of it, where do we think it really goes?

I'm starting to answer this question by describing the difference between "creativity" and "creation." Marketers are, in their best embodiments, “creative” – which means we create something out of nothing, or at least transform it into something that most of our audience didn’t see before.

Marketers also have taken considerable heat for their actions not being correlated closely enough to results – the ROI discussion, which I thought was always part of the discussion, but apparently not. There is a lack of clarity as to ‘what marketing owns’ and ‘what marketing does’ – I know, we all say we understand it, but frankly, our actions belie our words. Depending on your company, one may think your job is to get them on Moneyline, another may firmly believe you're there to reduce your budget by 20% and the third is sure your role is to make power point slides and possibly to pick up his dry cleaning, too.

The answer is a happy one for marketers who are tired of trying to grab ahold of this moving target of ownership. Marketers need to become ‘creators.’ This means they must develop within their departments and within their own selves some final unique deliverable, which they engineer, finance, sell, promote and ultimately own from cradle to grave. They must become entities within their own entity, microcosms in their own companies that mirror the whole in some small way.

What does this mean, exactly? They -- we -- must become writers, publishers, thought leaders, product creators, segment creators, promotion creators, program owners and other cradle to grave owners of content. It's not enough to launch a certification program: you need to create a brand out of it. A logo, an ad campaign, a PR campaign, events, promotions, influencer outreach, thought leadership, etc. We must develop promotional calendars more important than the products they promote. We must launch campaigns that are holistic, multi-faceted, and integrated to the point that they stand on their own legs and don't lean on the products or services they support. We must create our own living, breathing entities that have their own lifecycles, fans, and supporters.

When we create our own product lines -- not to mention when we actually do create products themselves -- we transcend the typical 'soft' definitions of marketing value-adds.

Regards.

Photo courtesy of Flickr