dyspepsia. Just tell me your new tag isn't "Born from Jets" and I'll recover.
If this isn't in fact a low-grade trip, to the shop behind all this -- albeit an alma mater of mine -- I respectfully present this haiku:
"Born from Jets" is Lowe's.
Don't ever do that again.
The humanity.
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Communicating, regardless
of who the sender is or how many receivers there are, is a four-layered phenomenon. That may not sound logical at first, but I contend that one message can have as many as four different meanings during the long, strange trip from the sender's brain to the receiver's brain. They are, in chronological order:
Notice the layers ascend in difficulty; naturally, it's easier to control your perception of what comes out of your mouth (a.k.a. speaking from the heart) than it is to control what your audience believes it hears (a.k.a. damned near impossible).
What we do for a living every day as marketers is, to harken back to school days, an incredibly expensive game of "telephone" -- except that all the kids in line passing the message are buried deep inside the recesses of our communication and perception functions. Indeed, branding is a sensory thing.
Which means building a brand requires more than making sense. It needs to be sense.
What substance mixes fastest with water? Water. You have to build your message out of the very essence of your and your audiences' gray matters, or you jeopardize your budget and potentially the brand itself.
Contrary to what you might be thinking, this blog entry isn't some hot-air ad for consumer research, though that discipline often provides a springboard for effective messaging. No, this is a plea for you to REALLY scrutinize your brand and your consumer -- and to be brutally honest with your assessment of both.
Remember, the sender represents two of the four steps in the communication process. Roughly translated: you're in control of your own house, and the receiver's is, at best, an educated guess. So, the first two quarters of your communications football game are a lock if you a) believe in what you're saying, and b) tightly control your message touchpoints. Achieve these and you'll go into the locker room at halftime with a strong lead.
I'm not saying it's easy, just that it's doable. (See anything from Apple recently if you don't believe it. Huge credit goes to the Apple product engineers/designers, to their ad shop TBWA/Chiat/Day, to Apple's p.r. agency Edelman, and to the folks at Apple who supervise and approve their work.)
Here's a less clinical view of my conjecture:
Last year, one of my buddies had a conversation with his wife, telling her that "Steve's going to become an S-Corp," meaning in shorthand that I was just about to turn my business, Brand Spanking New York, into a corporation.
Much to his surprise, his better half was visibly stunned, and a moment later, appalled. She stopped in her tracks and stood speechless outside their apartment on Broadway.
John asked, "What's the big deal? I'm seriously thinking about doing it too."
Alberta reached for a nearby wall on the verge of fainting, as John innocently told her that he might make his own design consultancy a real company as well.
"Honey, I don't think you're thinking practically," he pleaded. "It's smart. A lot of successful people start out like that. It's good for taxes. He'll be good at it."
Alberta nearly hyperventilated. "John," she exclaimed, "isn't that dangerous? Isn't it illegal? I can't BELIEVE what I'm hearing from you. I think I'm getting sick. Tell me you're joking. PLEASE."
John giggled out of embarrassment, genuinely dumbfounded at his wife's overreaction. Here were two people occupying seriously opposite ends of the communication spectrum.
Turns out, Alberta heard that I was about to become an "escort," not an "S-Corp" -- and for a moment seriously reconsidered not only her marriage but her sense of judgment. (Not to mention her opinion of me.)
Good for a hearty laugh, yes, but it corroborates my point. John thought what he said "S-Corp," and sure enough, he did say "S-Corp." But that's as far as THAT message went.
From there it became a different -- yet no less real -- message, if only for a moment. However, a moment of attention is a lot more than most marketers get from their audiences. This is the scary synapse between steps in the four-tier process. (And the basis of every Three's Company episode ever.)
The pre-school game of "telephone" had just passed along a new position on my morality to an audience which, just seconds later, found the speaker literally defending it.
So, to save your brand (and perhaps your marriage), know exactly what you're saying, who your audience is, what their predispositions are, and follow up with them to confirm they got it right.
Anything else and you might have a lot of 'splaining to do.
- What the sender thinks he said
- What the sender actually said
- What the receiver actually heard
- What the receiver thinks he heard
Notice the layers ascend in difficulty; naturally, it's easier to control your perception of what comes out of your mouth (a.k.a. speaking from the heart) than it is to control what your audience believes it hears (a.k.a. damned near impossible).
What we do for a living every day as marketers is, to harken back to school days, an incredibly expensive game of "telephone" -- except that all the kids in line passing the message are buried deep inside the recesses of our communication and perception functions. Indeed, branding is a sensory thing.
Which means building a brand requires more than making sense. It needs to be sense.
What substance mixes fastest with water? Water. You have to build your message out of the very essence of your and your audiences' gray matters, or you jeopardize your budget and potentially the brand itself.
Contrary to what you might be thinking, this blog entry isn't some hot-air ad for consumer research, though that discipline often provides a springboard for effective messaging. No, this is a plea for you to REALLY scrutinize your brand and your consumer -- and to be brutally honest with your assessment of both.
Remember, the sender represents two of the four steps in the communication process. Roughly translated: you're in control of your own house, and the receiver's is, at best, an educated guess. So, the first two quarters of your communications football game are a lock if you a) believe in what you're saying, and b) tightly control your message touchpoints. Achieve these and you'll go into the locker room at halftime with a strong lead.
I'm not saying it's easy, just that it's doable. (See anything from Apple recently if you don't believe it. Huge credit goes to the Apple product engineers/designers, to their ad shop TBWA/Chiat/Day, to Apple's p.r. agency Edelman, and to the folks at Apple who supervise and approve their work.)
Here's a less clinical view of my conjecture:
Last year, one of my buddies had a conversation with his wife, telling her that "Steve's going to become an S-Corp," meaning in shorthand that I was just about to turn my business, Brand Spanking New York, into a corporation.
Much to his surprise, his better half was visibly stunned, and a moment later, appalled. She stopped in her tracks and stood speechless outside their apartment on Broadway.
John asked, "What's the big deal? I'm seriously thinking about doing it too."
Alberta reached for a nearby wall on the verge of fainting, as John innocently told her that he might make his own design consultancy a real company as well.
"Honey, I don't think you're thinking practically," he pleaded. "It's smart. A lot of successful people start out like that. It's good for taxes. He'll be good at it."
Alberta nearly hyperventilated. "John," she exclaimed, "isn't that dangerous? Isn't it illegal? I can't BELIEVE what I'm hearing from you. I think I'm getting sick. Tell me you're joking. PLEASE."
John giggled out of embarrassment, genuinely dumbfounded at his wife's overreaction. Here were two people occupying seriously opposite ends of the communication spectrum.
Turns out, Alberta heard that I was about to become an "escort," not an "S-Corp" -- and for a moment seriously reconsidered not only her marriage but her sense of judgment. (Not to mention her opinion of me.)
Good for a hearty laugh, yes, but it corroborates my point. John thought what he said "S-Corp," and sure enough, he did say "S-Corp." But that's as far as THAT message went.
From there it became a different -- yet no less real -- message, if only for a moment. However, a moment of attention is a lot more than most marketers get from their audiences. This is the scary synapse between steps in the four-tier process. (And the basis of every Three's Company episode ever.)
The pre-school game of "telephone" had just passed along a new position on my morality to an audience which, just seconds later, found the speaker literally defending it.
So, to save your brand (and perhaps your marriage), know exactly what you're saying, who your audience is, what their predispositions are, and follow up with them to confirm they got it right.
Anything else and you might have a lot of 'splaining to do.
Sunday, October 02, 2005
Do the actions of celebrity
spokesmen/women/models/criminals really affect the equity of the brands they hawk?
Watching celebs shill anything from insurance to back pain relief is a joke, and I’ve always felt, an insult on my intelligence.
The concept harkens back to the days of Reagan pimping Chesterfield cigarettes, and when I was a kid, Bill Cosby promoting Jello. What could be more American than mixing our heroes with capitalism? But this begs an important question: if a consumer actually believes Tiger Woods drives a Buick, do marketers really want to count this brain-dead prospect as a member of their hallowed target?
Thankfully, I believe the numbers are dwindling, and that fewer Americans are falling for this nonsense. (Though I admit that statement doesn't apply to youth marketing for cereals and toys, nor may it ever affect the creepy deification of logo-laden racecar drivers by NASCAR Nation. But I digress.)
In short, I think people today are savvier consumers than ever before, and so the chasm between celebrity testimonials and credibility is widening. With that in mind, Kate Moss's recent de facto testimonial for nose candy, and the p.r. firestorm it created, inflicted far less damage on her brand roster than it would have even a decade ago, as consumers are slowly waking up to the truth: celebrities have nothing in common with us, and their testimonials are a sham.
With no accountability exerted on the famous for their actions (see also: Barry Bonds, Hugh Grant, and the rapper of your choice), the brands that the rich-n-famous are paid to love are merely winning free press -- and reinforcing what we already knew: dirty laundry sells, and consequences are minor.
Now, do I encourage H&M to run to Winona Rider as a Moss replacement? No, but anything short of murder these days seems tantamount to being "cool" or at least "rebellious" in the eyes of consumers and their growing indifference to immorality, and worse, classlessness.
Good news, bad news, no news -- with the message-barrage consumers endure daily, these three are more alike than ever, practically neutering the decisions made (good or bad) by anyone on a brand payroll in the court of public opinion.
Watching celebs shill anything from insurance to back pain relief is a joke, and I’ve always felt, an insult on my intelligence.
The concept harkens back to the days of Reagan pimping Chesterfield cigarettes, and when I was a kid, Bill Cosby promoting Jello. What could be more American than mixing our heroes with capitalism? But this begs an important question: if a consumer actually believes Tiger Woods drives a Buick, do marketers really want to count this brain-dead prospect as a member of their hallowed target?
Thankfully, I believe the numbers are dwindling, and that fewer Americans are falling for this nonsense. (Though I admit that statement doesn't apply to youth marketing for cereals and toys, nor may it ever affect the creepy deification of logo-laden racecar drivers by NASCAR Nation. But I digress.)
In short, I think people today are savvier consumers than ever before, and so the chasm between celebrity testimonials and credibility is widening. With that in mind, Kate Moss's recent de facto testimonial for nose candy, and the p.r. firestorm it created, inflicted far less damage on her brand roster than it would have even a decade ago, as consumers are slowly waking up to the truth: celebrities have nothing in common with us, and their testimonials are a sham.
With no accountability exerted on the famous for their actions (see also: Barry Bonds, Hugh Grant, and the rapper of your choice), the brands that the rich-n-famous are paid to love are merely winning free press -- and reinforcing what we already knew: dirty laundry sells, and consequences are minor.
Now, do I encourage H&M to run to Winona Rider as a Moss replacement? No, but anything short of murder these days seems tantamount to being "cool" or at least "rebellious" in the eyes of consumers and their growing indifference to immorality, and worse, classlessness.
Good news, bad news, no news -- with the message-barrage consumers endure daily, these three are more alike than ever, practically neutering the decisions made (good or bad) by anyone on a brand payroll in the court of public opinion.
Is price-slashing killing
brand loyalty? Hardly. In fact, I could make the argument that cost-cuts ENHANCE brand loyalty. How? Simple.
Focusing on price begets brand agnosticism, and so, on one level it reverts the marketplace back to the Industrial Revolution. In those days, mass-produced goods introduced the world to product parity -- and therefore, the reliance on differentiation messaging (some new-fangled thing called “advertising”).
Now we’re left with a somewhat even playing field across the competitive landscape -- and instead of quality as the constant, it’s price. Just another denominator. This makes the “brand braggart” the last differentiator remaining. Those companies or products buoyed by the pride of their consumers will become increasingly rare, and according to human nature, more magnetic to the customers who matter most.
Thus, with rock-bottom prices minimizing the value of, say, world-class customer service, the last refuge of the marketer is the ability to focus on the old “80% of your revenue comes from your top 20% customers” maxim. In the popular vernacular, “Who’s your daddy?” Why, brand loyalty, of course.
Focusing on price begets brand agnosticism, and so, on one level it reverts the marketplace back to the Industrial Revolution. In those days, mass-produced goods introduced the world to product parity -- and therefore, the reliance on differentiation messaging (some new-fangled thing called “advertising”).
Now we’re left with a somewhat even playing field across the competitive landscape -- and instead of quality as the constant, it’s price. Just another denominator. This makes the “brand braggart” the last differentiator remaining. Those companies or products buoyed by the pride of their consumers will become increasingly rare, and according to human nature, more magnetic to the customers who matter most.
Thus, with rock-bottom prices minimizing the value of, say, world-class customer service, the last refuge of the marketer is the ability to focus on the old “80% of your revenue comes from your top 20% customers” maxim. In the popular vernacular, “Who’s your daddy?” Why, brand loyalty, of course.
Saturday, October 01, 2005
Access. Certainly the secret
to a strong brand.
Perhaps. But then tell me why accessibility is too-often overlooked when it comes to the notion of building a robust "brain-mark" on target consumers.
We're led to believe that, on average, no one on earth is more than 100 feet from a Coke machine at any moment. The great chicken-and-egg question is: Is Coca-Cola popular just because the thirsty can quickly and easily get a bottle, or did Coke spend all that money to infuse themselves into popularity?
Both.
It's not a stretch to believe the children of the primitive Mandinka Tribe would choose Coke in the Pepsi Challenge. They've never heard of Pepsi, let alone consumed it. Indeed, to people all over the world, a white ribbon on a red field signifies "cola." Or "sweet" or "fun" or "America" or even "Christmas."
If familiarity generates comfort, the inverse is also true. Putting on my ugly mega-capitalist mask, I recognize immediately that this fact means big-time Lifetime Customer Value, long the holy grail for relationship marketers. To simplify, a customer can feel "at home" with something or someone only after dozens, even thousands, of interactions. (Of course, the product must perform over and over and over again, or putting it in everyone's hands would only expedite its demise.) Translation: $ to the nth degree per consumer brain.
The victory of the Open Source ideology over the proprietary is just another example. So is the global penetration of English, resulting in the first true international language. Everyone's invited to speak English, making it possible for a man in Perth and a man in Edmonton to do business with each other, prosper, and proliferate their own interests together -- as opposed to the French, who lord over the use of their precious tongue as if each word their last Euro. (It's still my next-favorite language, but I digress.)
I've worked nearly five years in the luxury auto sector, and between the accounts I worked on and those of our competitors', one less-than-tasteful phrase rang loudest: "Butts in seats. Butts in seats. Butts in seats."
My job as a marketer is to compel someone to actually put his posterior inside of one of these machines and try it out. +TANGENT: To do that, they have to visit a dealership, one of the few places of business that rank lower than the dentist's office on the comfortometer.+
It's not putting "marketing messages in eyes and ears," the saying is putting "butts in seats." I have to repeatedly beg someone to access the product before I can ask 'em to shell out an immense amount of money to acquire it. And even for makers of the best sedan in the world, without access, the product and the dealer cannot complete the experience cycle. That means no sales, no money, and no manner by which to expand the access net.
So next time you slide (a pocket's worth of) change into a soda machine, ask yourself if you did it -- honestly -- because you were thirsty for that brand specifically, if you were just plain thirsty, or because it was there. You might be surprised at the answer.
Perhaps. But then tell me why accessibility is too-often overlooked when it comes to the notion of building a robust "brain-mark" on target consumers.
We're led to believe that, on average, no one on earth is more than 100 feet from a Coke machine at any moment. The great chicken-and-egg question is: Is Coca-Cola popular just because the thirsty can quickly and easily get a bottle, or did Coke spend all that money to infuse themselves into popularity?
Both.
It's not a stretch to believe the children of the primitive Mandinka Tribe would choose Coke in the Pepsi Challenge. They've never heard of Pepsi, let alone consumed it. Indeed, to people all over the world, a white ribbon on a red field signifies "cola." Or "sweet" or "fun" or "America" or even "Christmas."
If familiarity generates comfort, the inverse is also true. Putting on my ugly mega-capitalist mask, I recognize immediately that this fact means big-time Lifetime Customer Value, long the holy grail for relationship marketers. To simplify, a customer can feel "at home" with something or someone only after dozens, even thousands, of interactions. (Of course, the product must perform over and over and over again, or putting it in everyone's hands would only expedite its demise.) Translation: $ to the nth degree per consumer brain.
The victory of the Open Source ideology over the proprietary is just another example. So is the global penetration of English, resulting in the first true international language. Everyone's invited to speak English, making it possible for a man in Perth and a man in Edmonton to do business with each other, prosper, and proliferate their own interests together -- as opposed to the French, who lord over the use of their precious tongue as if each word their last Euro. (It's still my next-favorite language, but I digress.)
I've worked nearly five years in the luxury auto sector, and between the accounts I worked on and those of our competitors', one less-than-tasteful phrase rang loudest: "Butts in seats. Butts in seats. Butts in seats."
My job as a marketer is to compel someone to actually put his posterior inside of one of these machines and try it out. +TANGENT: To do that, they have to visit a dealership, one of the few places of business that rank lower than the dentist's office on the comfortometer.+
It's not putting "marketing messages in eyes and ears," the saying is putting "butts in seats." I have to repeatedly beg someone to access the product before I can ask 'em to shell out an immense amount of money to acquire it. And even for makers of the best sedan in the world, without access, the product and the dealer cannot complete the experience cycle. That means no sales, no money, and no manner by which to expand the access net.
So next time you slide (a pocket's worth of) change into a soda machine, ask yourself if you did it -- honestly -- because you were thirsty for that brand specifically, if you were just plain thirsty, or because it was there. You might be surprised at the answer.
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