Thursday, September 17, 2009

Do The Math

Numbers in transport

A common though underutilized truism in marketing is to quantify your claims whenever and wherever possible.

'Biggest', 'Better', Fastest', 'Smallest', 'Cheapest' are nice claims but of little* value. Only slightly better are percentages, useful in any circumstance when the real numbers are small to begin with ($0.04 is a penny less than $0.05, but it is also fully 20% less)

I was reminded of this point by a number** of excellent recent blog entries that are worth a read:


How to Make Your Data Matter, Fast Company, by Dan and Chip Heath - Notable insight: "...an $800 billion stimulus works out to be the rough equivalent of seven weeks' income for an American household. Is that worth it? Seven weeks' worth of work to stave off a potential depression. Or maybe you're appalled. Regardless, we can finally have a real argument, because we have a better idea of what we're arguing about."

How Comedians Clarify Brain-fuzzing Stats, again, Fast Company, by Dan Macsai - Notable Insight: "...If Rod Blagojevich winds up in jail, four of the last eight Illinois governors will have served time. Did you know -- and this is true -- that only 48% of the people who commit murder end up in jail? You are more likely to end up in jail if you become the governor of Illinois than if you become a murderer. Make the smart choice, kids. (Jon Stewart)"

What Does A Trillion Dollars Look Like?, courtesy of cnbc.com - Notable insight: "With the largest market cap among U.S. companies, Exxon Mobil’s value of publicly traded shares is over $345 billion (as of 3/31/09). If this amount was denominated in $100 bills, the block of Benjamins covering the area of a standard American football field would stack to a height of about 28.7 feet.
"

Ultimately if your numbers are impressive or modest, whole numbers or percentages, what matters is that your audience understands them and relates to them in clear terms that mean something to them.

(*specifically, 86% less value, that is.)
(** exactly three)

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Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Thank you, Captain Obvious

Thank you, Captain Obvious!

So I just got this email... sent by a company that sells 'dashboard' marketing management software - to me, a professional marketer.

Know your
product (marketing software), know your audience (marketer). So far so good.

But the first line of copy?

"Remember when marketers with the biggest budget usually got the biggest customer base? Those days are gone. Forever."

Well, first, I never recommend writing copy that opens with a rhetorical question. Because it might not be rhetorical to your target customer, and once they answer no, you've lost them. And in this case, I answer 'no'. As in, "No, I don't remember when marketers with the biggest budget usually got the biggest customer base. And neither does anyone who started practicing advertising and marketing at any point following the Johnson administration."

Second, um, huh? This is compelling copy? Do they think I - or any marketer who has reached a point in their career where they are a decisionmaker - or even an influencer regarding such software - was actually sitting at their desk, thinking, "Geez, if only I could spend more on a wildly chaotic, unstructured campaign that lacks any sense of accountability, like the guys on Mad Men"?

"What despair. I guess we'll just be second rate until I can get more money from the CFO."

Not so much.

Here's what's wrong with marketing today: Even a marketing-centric company can't piece together decent marketing copy, relying instead on empty platitudes, because they don't understand that their target audience is far more sophisticated than they give them (us) credit for.

What might be worse: Perhaps marketers still aren't all that sophisticated, and this company's copy is more on-target than even I want to admit.









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Monday, September 07, 2009

Fear and the American Consumer

COMMERCE CITY, CO - SEPTEMBER 03:  Local resid...

In a recent article in his newsletter Drum Beat News, my colleague Jack Howe writes of the death of 'conspicuous consumption':

"Luxury buying is off in a major way - reports from Neiman's, Saks, and all top brand name retails report the same cut back from their consumers. So the company that must survive is making sure they offer solid business cases with every offer. Understanding the consequence of how the CEO, at the business your selling to, gets paid can pay off for you, the seller. As consumers, we are still spending, just not in the ways we were before. It is highly unlikely, given the cost of bailing us out of our current economic situation, that we will in our life time, see a return to what we knew as conspicuous consumption.
"

Interesting also is his observation in the same article that the increasing homogeneity of automobile design also points to the idea that 'standing out' is 'out'.

Whether or not I agree that recent poor auto design is a sign of a larger cultural shift, the apparent death of 'conspicuous consumption' is an interesting argument and worth evaluating from a marketing perspective. Given rising national and personal debt, a worldwide credit crisis, inflationary pressures on energy and food stuffs, plus the impact of environmental awareness and regulation, comfort with high levels of consumption no longer looks - or feels- 'right'. There are even anecdotal stories of monied customers foregoing store-branded shopping bags in order to keep a lower profile on their ill-timed retail therapy.

For years many marketers have relied primarily on brand prestige (associating personal attributes onto or from a product) and constancy (that is, 'I know what I'm getting', aka 'no one ever got fired for buying IBM') to maintain market share and margins. With the new normal of a slower consumer engine on the economy, we must re-evaluate what motivates customers now. I see these four are among the leading motivators:

Value: The rise of the big box discount chains, while suspect themselves in this era of the 'new normal', provide insight into consumers desire to buy in bulk, reduce packaging, and generally 'stock up' in what is perceived to be a very volatile period in our history.

Necessity: Discretionary spending is off, minimalism is in. Name your own example: Even here in truck-crazy Texas, Hummers are criticized, while the sparse Prius hybrid is envied. Vacations are out, staycations are in.

Savings: Once arguably in negative territory, personal savings in the United States has turned to a pace not seen in years, some estimates now as high as 4%. Anti-debt radio personality Dave Ramsey has a slogan that says it best: "...the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice."

Fear: Arguably the previous three motivators are a result of fear to one degree or another. But this is a non-specific, generalized fear of a quickly shifting geo-political and economic landscape. Remember what happened to action movies after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989? Stallone had to find new enemies because the Ruskies were our pals. It was easy in an earlier era when Russians were the bad guys and we had a collective target for our enmity. But the new political environment, unnamed terrorists have exacted far more damage to our lives and psyches in the last decade than the Russians did in the prior fifty years.

Once, leveraging FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) was the last refuge of marketers unable to sell a product or solution on merits. Today, it seems to be the self-imposed primary motivation of consumers. And in a world where banks are bankrupt, car manufacturers are nationalized, real estate is no longer an inflation hedge, terrorists have us disrobing to get on an airplane, and the national debt clock needs more light bulbs, who could blame them?


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