Jony Ive, Harold Ramis, copycats, and creative wisdom

I recently read that Apple’s lead designer, Jony Ive, was quoted about his disdain for copycats, calling them lazy, and their actions, theft. Elsewhere, I read of plans to remake Harold Ramis’ classic 1984 comedy Ghostbusters.

This got me to thinking that even as the products, services, and ideas we produce are later copied by weaker minds and less innovative companies, the original remains. The original contributes something that copies can never match; that is, the creative viewpoint of the originator.

Jony Ive’s creative contributions are widely recognized, and many of us benefit from his product design - and in fact will soon be reminded of these contributions every time we glance at out forthcoming AppleWatch. And when the writer and director of Ghostbusters, Harold Ramis, died earlier this year, he left behind not only an impressive body of creative work (including Animal House, Caddyshack, and Groundhog Day) but like Ive, also many wise, quotable insights about the creative process. The quotes from Ive and Ramis below are just a few that are applicable not only to creative professionals, but to those in nearly every line of work. Here are just a few nuggets of wisdom that Ive and Ramis have shared:

• "A psychologist said to me, there are only two important questions you have to ask yourself. 'What do you really feel?' And, 'what do you really want?' If you can answer those two, you probably can leave your neuroses behind you." (Ramis)
• "I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what's next." (Ive)
• "My characters aren't losers. They're rebels. They win by their refusal to play by everyone else's rules." (Ramis)
• "‘Different' and 'new' is relatively easy. Doing something that's genuinely ‘better’ is very hard." (Ive)
• "The cutting room is where you discover the optimal length of the movie." (Ramis)
• "True simplicity is, well, you just keep on going and going until you get to the point where you go, 'Yeah, well, of course.' Where there's no rational alternative." (Ive)
• "First and foremost, you have to make the movie for yourself. And that's not to say, to hell with everyone else, but what else have you got to go on but your own taste and judgment?" (Ramis)
• "What I love about the creative process, and this may sound naive, but it is this idea that one day there is no idea, and no solution, but the next day there is an idea. I find that incredibly exciting and conceptually actually remarkable." (Ive)
• "Nothing reinforces a professional relationship more than enjoying success with someone." (Ramis)

The adage that imitation is the highest form of flattery is of little comfort when faced with copy cats, second rate knock-offs, and credit-stealers. Still, while it is nearly impossible to try to stop others’ imitations of your unique ideas, perhaps that is not what is important. Your contribution should be more than the sum of the patents, productivity, and profits you delivered.  It is perhaps more helpful to remember that the true innovator has not only have contributed great ideas to the world, but like Ramis, Ive, and many others before them, have contributed the wisdom that only their unique perspective can create. 

Building teamwork between marketing and sales

It goes without saying (at least I hope it does) that to be effective, the relationship between marketing and sales demands close cooperation. Yet even as the most critical of a company’s interactions, marketing and sales are often at each other’s backs, placing blame, demanding action, and generally acting worse toward one another than they do to the competition.

The metaphor I like to use to describe a well-functioning sales and marketing organization isn’t a Kumbaya campfire, but a relay race. In this example, marketing hands off sales tools and campaign leads, with sales taking the hand-off and running toward the finish line – the completed sale. Yet as simple as this example is, anyone familiar with track knows that the hand-off is the most difficult part of the race.

Before taking the hand-off, the runner ahead (sales) must start getting up to speed. The runner behind (marketing) therefore, needs to share plans and metrics so sales knows what to expect and can begin to prepare their customers, prospects, and accurately complete their  forecasts. Efficiencies are lost when these racers aren’t fully aware of where the other is on the track; that is, salespeople are accidentally or purposefully unaware of what marketing objectives are, when campaigns are running, and what to expect in terms of number and quality of leads.

Further, in relay races, there is only a set amount of track space allowed to make the transfer – racers must understand the distance each racer will run. In my example, if sales expects marketing to qualify leads further or marketing expects sales to follow-up on leads in a certain timeframe, the baton can be passed too soon or too late, outside the zone, resulting in missed sales opportunities.

Even when the runners are up to speed and the transfer is made, disconnects between objectives, targets, and priorities can cause our metaphorical baton to be dropped and take an organization out of the race altogether. Marketing is in charge of evaluating the market and strategizing initiatives, but always with the input of sales so common targets, messages, objectives and timing can be established. This needs to be done quarterly to not only stay aligned, but to evaluate what is and isn’t working.

Relays are the most team-intensive sport in track, and therefore are won only when every participant is not only performing at their best, but makes certain that they’ve passed and received the baton smoothly between team members. To do well, marketing and sales need to do their best individually. But to win, marketing and sales need to cooperate as a team.

5 reasons to persevere through start-up obstacles

They said it was going to be hard. But you had no idea it would be this hard. Exhaustion, a poor diet, a parade of ‘no’s and disappointments. Plus mentors and advisers, including me, listing reasons to pack it in. It isn't easy to maintain your enthusiasm and energy in the face of all that.

So when should you not shutter your start-up?

The only thing I hate to see more than good people burning cycles on lost causes is to see good people giving up too early on good ideas when in reality the opportunity was far more promising than they could see from their trendy co-located office loft.

Persevere

So when are the discouraging obstacles not an apocalyptic sign, but simply short-term hurdles, perhaps requiring just a bit more effort and diligence? Here are just a few clues that it’s time to stick it out and renew the energy and resources to continue:

1.      Required capital was initially under-estimated (this is common) but doors are still open to you for additional resources, even if from friends and family.  You may be reticent to ask again, and that's a fair concern... and indicative that you are being wise with investors' trust and money. Still, it is your responsibility to manage your enterprise wisely and to sell your vision. But never confuse your very real fiscal responsibility with imagined guilt of the risk both you and investors are taking together.

2.      You’ve not yet introduced your MVP (minimally viable product)... but it is because you’ve made a valid pivot from the original plan. If the delay from these pivots are based on honest and useful customer feedback, the delays are valid and a good reason for asking for more runway. 

3.      Your reasons for delays and obstacles are not excuses. There’s a difference between a problem you cannot control and therefore must accept and overcome, versus a crisis you created or could have changed but chose to ignore.

4.      The market gap that your product/service is intended to fill is still not being adequately filled by established competitors. As long as it will fill a genuine need in the market (presuming you’ve done that diligence) then there is still an opportunity to be exploited.

5.      You can identify all the voices telling you that you cannot do it - because they all sound remarkably like you. They are all inside your own head. Take a step back and look at yourself in the third person. Is the negativity you are hearing from yourself the same you’d tell someone in your identical position? Or would you be kinder, more encouraging while still realistic? 

Like my earlier post giving you good reasons to shut the doors, there are no hard and fast rules, and of course, any one of these are not a guarantee of a successful start-up deserving your continued effort. But just as it is unwise to continue to pursue a start-up out of obligation, it is unwise to make a permanent decision about shuttering it without taking a moment to review the real reasons for your current discouragement.

Few if any start-up situations ever meet ideal expectations. But with a deep breath and a little introspection, you might find that the reality of the situation is far from desperate. 

5 reasons to shutter your start-up.

There's no lack of enthusiastic blogs, posters, and gurus out there encouraging you to follow your dreams and strike out on your own. So I am aware that my contrarian posts can be a real downer, as I’ve written several posts that discourage potential start-ups from, well, starting up, including the fallacy of expecting a ‘better’ product to succeed, or the idea that you should chase your dreams.

But there are great ideas that deserve your attention and enthusiasm. Yet once you’ve already sunk your heart and soul and 401K into your business, when is negative thinking just ‘nattering nabobs of negativity’, and when does it become a warning that something is wrong and you need to get out? After all, the sage tells us that ‘everything is temporary given enough time’, and we all know that even expected obstacles cost more and take longer to overcome than ever often predicted.

So when is enough enough? There are a few clues that it’s time to recognize that it’s time to close the doors:

1. You, yourself, are exhausted and cannot continue to infuse your discouraged team with requisite energy to soldier on through the current circumstances.
2. Resources are spent. This seems obvious, but resources are never really ‘gone’, just harder to raise - but if you are spending more time raising funds instead of selling an MVP (minimally viable product), you are on a slippery slope.
3. You’ve made little progress in overcoming objections from potential users either in fact or positioning.
4. You’ve missed initial, and extended, deadlines and milestones.
5. The market gap that the product/service needed to have filled is beginning to be adequately filled by established competitors.

There are no hard and fast rules, and any one of these are not indicative of a start-up needing to be shuttered. But any two or more create an uphill battle that takes the joy, enthusiasm, and health and finances of founders down with it.

Unless your start-up is a cruise line, there’s no glory in going down with the ship. 

3 marketing topics to school yourself on this fall.

Labor Day marks the second start of a new year, an opportunity, as with the one in January, for a fresh start and self-improvement. As marketers, it’s a good time to take stock of what we don’t know, in order to stay on top of the latest innovations in accountability, effectiveness, and customer satisfaction.

Social media. It may seem obvious, but the proliferation of platforms, broad use of them for customer interaction, and still-experimental state of the industry can result in huge opportunities for you or colossal blunders. Study up to learn from past mistakes and to prevent your own.

Content marketing. Understanding the changes in creating intelligent dialogue with customers is a larger change in the marketing landscape in the past several years than even social media, which has merely accelerated the process. Marketing as a provider not only of information but also of unbiased value is a sea-change and must understood to be properly executed.

Mobile marketing. There are more mobile internet users online than desktop users. Understanding the needs of the mobile user goes beyond device compatibility. Get ahead of your competition because companies that do not adapt to mobile will suffer the same fate of the latecomers to the internet in the 90s.

There are many others, including marketing automation, search engine optimization (Google makes sure you are out of date almost monthly), and alignment of social and search. 

What others are you studying up on?

Why marketers owe a debt of gratitude to IT

In this Forbes article by Eric Lai of SAP, Lai addresses a recent report from Gartner that predicts marketers will outspend CIOs in just a few more years.

As I've been saying for years, marketing is far broader than marketing communications, the role with which it is often wrongfully equivocated as marketers become increasingly reliant on data to drive decision-making .

Today Mr. Wanamaker would know which half of his advertising is wasted because today's Wanamakers have professional, data driven marketers fine tuning lead generation, demand generation, lead nurturing, campaign analysis, social media automation, mobile marketing, and so forth.

It's the thing of science, not art, and marketing is increasingly the purveyor of both, making marketing a 'real job' in the eyes of executives and mothers-in-law alike.

Avoiding a 'Nightmare': Small business lessons from Gordon Ramsey

I’ve noticed, from watching too many episodes of Kitchen Nightmares (a DVR is a curse), that all small business can learn something from Gordon Ramsey's formulaic approach to restaurant turnarounds.  The show is eminently predictable  but entertaining nonetheless. It's formula, and it's lessons, are applicable to many small businesses. First, the typical revelations for featured restaurateurs on Kitchen Nightmares, followed by the truism for all small businesses:

·         KN: Your issues are grounded in the fact that you have no prior restaurant experience.

o   A track record and case studies are important tools in selling. Know what it is you are offering your customers

·         KN: You think Gordon will love your food and you just don’t know why business is poor.

o   You can’t be so close to your business you miss the bigger picture.

·         KN:  You will be surprised and angry when Gordon doesn’t like your food.

o   Your business is your baby, but you have to be realistic about how good and how unique what you are providing actually is and be prepared to change. A lack of complaints is not a series of endorsements. Regularly poll customers to identify areas of improvement.

·          KN:  Gordon will not like that you use a microwave and use canned and frozen ingredients.

o   Your offering must be unique to you. What is your vision, mission, your unique value proposition? You cannot simply do the same thing faster or cheaper

·          KN:  You will yell at Gordon and ask him who he thinks he is.

o   Invite criticism. Criticism and failure are difficult but necessary to success. Do not create an atmosphere where employees fear complaining or offering suggestions.

·          KN:      Gordon will find icky things in your kitchen.

o   Stay organized and responsive to your customers.

·          KN:     Gordon may close your restaurant for a good scrubbing if it is extra icky.

o   Remain ethical and fair in all your business dealings.

·         KN; Gordon finally makes you realize some things about yourself.

o   Take time to think, strategize, and redirect.

·         KN: You will agree to start acting an owner.

o   Know your goals, your priorities, and create plan to move forward.

·         KN: Gordon will simplify your menu and feature fresh, simple ingredients from local merchants.

o   Keep it simple, stupid. Always worked, always will.

·         KN: Gordon will update your drab, 80s décor.

o   Thought leadership is critical to your brand. Stay on top of changes in your industry. Better yet, create them.

·         KN: Your service will initially be poor on re-launch night.

o   Change is painful. Change takes time.

·         KN: Suddenly your staff will get it together.

o   Hire good people and trust them to get the job done.

·         KN: Gordon will meet with you and your staff afterward and tell you how far you’ve come.

o   Reward and recognize small wins along the way.

·         KN:  You will hug Gordon.

o   Sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

...and there will be cursing. Lots and lots of cursing.

What are your 'real' priorities? A simple test.

One of the most difficult questions we answer to ourselves are 'what are our priorities?'.

To be clear, that's not, 'what do you say your priorities are', but what they really are. That's the hard part.

To determine how well your stated priorities align with your actual priorities, try this trick: Next time you say to yourself, "I don't have time to... (activity)", change 'time' to 'priority', by saying instead "It's not a priority to me that I..."

It's revealing. And in some cases, disappointing. It quickly reveals the real priorities we've set for ourselves.

Because when the average American spends hours in front of the television every day, its easy to allow time to slip away unnoticed. But time is a finite resource that must be placed into a triage - and that simple change in wording will help you determine if you truly do not have time, or you simply have other priorities.

Next time you miss the kids' school play or ballgame, skip studying a new language, or stay in instead of going for a run, is it really a lack of time, or simply not, truly, a priority for you?

 

Your dream is a sunk cost: Facing reality with your start-up

This article from the New York Times underscores a point I've made to unemployed friends, my college students, even in articles a few years ago for the Dallas Morning News, and I've alluded to it in this blog, here.

Treat your dream to build a business as a sunk cost.

Feel good Successories posters and legions of Twitter career coaches would have you think otherwise. They've no skin in the game. Of course they're going to tell you to 'go for it'. They aren't investing their savings, their time, their energy.

A sunk cost is a cost that is irretrievably lost. Business professors tell us to ignore them when making go-forward decisions. Any entrepreneur, hell, any gambling addict will tell you that it's hard to do. One more sale, one more roll of the dice, and it's all alright again. But it's not real. Your dream is a sunk cost. No getting it back - that is, it's there, it's been imagined, it exists. No turning back on having the idea. The 'one day'. It's a yearning, and therefore a drain on your energy, but not yet your wallet, or your family. Turn your back on it. Because everything that follows is not, not yet anyway, a sunk cost.

Now, hopefully this allows you a bit more objectivity. Every additional moment you put toward this dream is a sunk cost. An opportunity cost. At some point you invest in research and site location reports, engineering drawings or trips to see investors or check out competitors. Sunk costs of time, energy, initial but modest expense. But you still have money in the bank and a steady job.

The dream, the drawings, the unsigned lease agreement, a logo, and business cards. Sunk costs.


Now the question is, IGNORING your sunk costs, ignoring the biggest sunk cost, that is, IGNORING the fact that this design/store/studio/idea is 'your dream', are you ready to move forward?

Really?

Because if you are really ignoring the 'sunk cost' of this emotionally compelling dream of telling your boss to f- off and instead go it alone, then you need to be able to tell yourself this: That you are sufficiently distanced from this dream such that even if this was someone else's dream, you'd still invest this level of energy and money into it.

Because in the end, dreams aren't real. Sunk costs, on the other hand, are real. And bankruptcy, particularly self-inflicted bankruptcy, is a nightmare.

Okay, still? Great. Dream's over. Wake up and get to work.

Squirrels first. Golfers second.

I live on a golf course and more than occasionally golfers either walking, searching for a ball, or in golf carts driving near the wrought iron fence toward their lay get too close for my black lab and he'll bark incessantly with a menacing tone until they move on (I try to keep him quiet during the backswing).  He doesn't understand that the entire golf course - even just the fifth green - is not his to protect.

No, his focus should be on his own backyard. A modest yard, two mature live oaks, a flower garden, shrubbery, patio, arbor. Not acres of well manicured greens running the length of the neighborhood.

But I, myself, too often try to 'boil the ocean' when all I can really control is my own pot. In truth, that's all we ever can do. But if we do a good enough job at that, collectively, the ocean - world peace, world hunger, the environment, the industry, the company - will come along in time.

Seeking to solve the bigger issues is noble. These issues may be they charitable, or simply problems at work beyond your authority (not ability) to change. Ultimately they are past our own ' fence'. In reality, our real responsibilities lie within our sphere of influence, in our own backyard. While we need to keep our eyes on the ultimate, broader objectives (in my Lab's case, ridding the world of golfers) it is because results matter that for our objectives, our sanity, our accomplishments, we focus first on what we can impact most directly in our own sphere of influence, that is, within our own backyards.

Proving that social media is not a slam dunk.

Here's a broad, but direct and succinct analysis about the role and effectiveness of social media... as a tool, clearly not a solution in itself. Numbers tell the story on Oreo's real-time response to the Super Bowl blackout - what I still see as perhaps the best use of social media (creatively and contextually) since we as marketers started talking about it. But as good as it was, it wasn't a slam dunk. Read more here.

Three rules for managing third party resources

Harvard Business Review publishes an interesting article here on how smaller companies can hire third party services to get the same data insight (as in the case featured) or resources as bigger competitors. Managing these resources is a separate issue altogether, but there are best practices for getting the most out of, well, companies like mine. Essentially this involves three key areas: Shared objectives, regular benchmarking, and communication.

BP media mis-steps: Incompetent PR or arrogant leadership?

I can’t help but consider the past six weeks of corporate responses from BP regarding the Atlantis Platform disaster. The initial response in the first week was bad enough to warrant a typical blog entry about proper PR, compare the obvious textbook Tylenol case, but I thought that too banal. Yet as time passes, the official responses continue to be not only awful, but awful in a colossal, ongoing, repeating, self defeating, ignorant sort of way that underscores that BP executives are far better at talking than listening. Or doing.

The spill in the Gulf is now the largest ecological disaster ever in the United States. (BP needs to thank the gross incompetence that led to the tragedies and human toll at Bhopal and Chernobyl for keeping them off the top of the ‘worldwide’ list. For now.) So let us consider for a moment what it must be like at BP headquarters:

Consider the boardroom dialogue at HQ that allowed BP CEO Tony Hayward to say to a UK newspaper that “The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.”

What of the urgent meetings among top executives that ended with the suggestion that BP stick to initial estimates of 1,000 barrels per day of leaking oil, when many independent experts were saying up to 20,000? Did they think the public – including experts in flow measurement – weren’t ever going to find out?

What of the casual water cooler conversations between cubicles where idiotic comments that the company “doesn’t know how birds and marine life have died” were allowed to be shared – and then implicitly encourage public opinion pieces about how the wildlife damage is minimal – “only being a little oil on a couple bird’s wings”.

Not to mention apparently very little comment regarding the eleven men who lost their lives when the platform exploded. (The media is complicit in their attention to the ‘pipe cam” over the human toll.)

There are more examples. Many, many more, as the list of mis-steps is as long as the oil slick is wide. But can we blame the PR team? Well, insomuch as an OIL COMPANY apparently had no, or a poor, or not agreed upon, disaster response process in place, yes. But even at that, it is often the corporate executives, regularly relegating PR (and marketing) to the back of the bus and out of the boardroom, that are likely to blame here. Instead of allowing these critical communication professionals to help manage the disaster communications, designate executive spokespeople, and align messages, BP simply sent employees a reminder of the Non-Disclosure Agreements in their contracts and then continued blathering unbelievable statements like a five-year-old caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

Until the disaster, the BP marketing and public relations team was doing an excellent job redefining BP (which holds the worst safety record in the industry), as a leader in eco-friendly oil production and alternative energy. But corporate PR can only do so much. Eventually, words must be backed with action if a brand makeover is to ‘stick’.

Even at BP, I suspect their PR professionals understand this. Unfortunately, their executives never have.

I'd rather fight than switch.

Like the BBD&O Tareyton cigarette ads of years past illustrated ("Us Tareyton smokers would rather fight than switch"), most companies rely on brand loyalty to drive sales of their products among loyalists. Investing in initiatives to build this loyalty is the most effective means of creating easy recurring revenue and lowering costs while gaining share. Yet every day, consumers do change their habits - sometimes temporarily in response to a low price, sometimes permanently when a new product is proven superior. The objective for new product managers is to encourage first use - the first trial of a product among target consumers - in order to create a wedge between their buying preferences (or habits) and a new alternative.

CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods) manufacturers are particularly involved in a this daily battle, often times a battle between brand managers in the same company (P&G, for example, regarding dish soap).

In a new report from the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), Booz & Co. and SheSpeaks, Shopper Marketing 3.0: Unleashing the Next Wave of Value, the authors state three critical weaknesses in the current battle brand strategies - all carry a similar theme, that is, too much concern regarding out-of-store promotion and a disregard for where 59% of purchase decisions are made - in store (pricing, shelf placement, and product packaging). While in-store promotion, pricing and packaging isn't sexy, it is effective. Marketers are often easily distracted by the excitement of promotional activity and the dynamics of mass-market tools, clever use of new media, and the like, but as I've stated before, the marketing function should be, arguably, less than 25% promotion. This report underscores that for CPG - but it can apply to B2B as well - that price, product and placement are very critical factors, particularly the latter when in-store displays, packaging, and 'shelf talkers' (shelf signage) are so very influential to shoppers - 77% of whom do not shop with a list, much less carry a hardened loyalty to a specific brand.

For me, once again this is a reminder that the critical value of marketing lies outside the clever graphics and innovative viral games. While still important, it is actually the pricing, product positioning, and placement that combined with promotion makes the needle move. Marketing must embrace more than promotion - and then measure and use analytic tools if they are ever going to be seen as equal professionals in the boardroom.

And that's a switch worth the fight.

Is That The Best You Can Do?

A Souk in Dubai

In just the past couple of weeks, I calculate that I’ve saved roughly $400 by simply asking, “Is that the best you can do?”

It’s a standard haggler’s phrase, and I’ve grown more comfortable asking the question as time wears on. It started when I was in Dubai several years ago, when, purchasing my wife some earrings at the hotel gift shop, the clerk asked, “You’re an American, yes?” When I replied in the affirmative, he told me he was going to give me an automatic 30% discount because he understands that “Americans don’t haggle.” It was reinforced a year or so later when my dentist, realizing that I’d recently hung a shingle and therefore had decided to forego dental coverage as a cost-saving measure, quickly volunteered to take 10% off the bill. “It’s not that we necessarily mark-up for insurance, but your cash helps.” Well, I got to thinking, if there are places that voluntarily negotiate even when I don’t; well then, I should try it more often.

So, as I’ve successfully negotiated, among other things, the cost of an airsoft rifle for my son at a flea market, the number (and necessity) of expensive tests with my physician, the price of a mattress at a retail store, and successfully argued data service charges with AT&T, my family is used to my asking the question when it comes time to save a little cash.

You should try it.

But what if you also applied the question “Is that the best you can do?” to all your business encounters? What better terms, better margins, better quality, better service, or better turnaround times could you expect? And moreover, what if you applied that question to your own proposals before issuing them? How much more competitive could you be? How much happier could you make your customers?

And what if we applied the question to ourselves, perhaps as a New Year’s resolution? Commit to asking it of yourself before succumbing to every possible weakness - and the question becomes a resolution that in itself could serve to help accomplish all the others. Think about it: reaching for a cigarette? A doughnut? Sleeping in, instead of working out?

“Is that the best you can do?”

In which he foretold the future.

So, about a year ago, I posted an entry in response to a survey from Chief Executive Magazine regarding my prognostications for the year just past. I offered my learned opinion, shared it with you, and now, in the interest of full disclosure (not to mention I'm too busy and not clever enough to come up with an original end-of-year post) here's the results:

I said:

On December 31, 2009:
Dow Jones (currently at 8,932) will be at 9621 points
Oil (currently at $40.50) will be $59 per barrel
Interest Rates (the Fed Funds Rate, currently at 1.00%) will be: 1.00%

Actually, on December 28, 2009:
Dow Jones (currently at 8,932) is at 10,547 points
Oil (currently at $40.50) is at $78 per barrel
Interest Rates (the Fed Funds Rate, currently at 1.00%) is at: .50%

Prediction comments:
(I said) Uncertainty is driving the market and the economy; once some certainty arrives with new administration - for good or bad - wild swings will stabilize and the widely oversold market and general malaise will slowly lift.
What happened:
Uncertainty was driving the market and the economy; but any sliver of not-bad, or less-bad news, swung the pendulum back just as wildly as the markets moved to cover shorts and other dubious financial mechanisms. The seating of a new administration, alas, had nothing to do with it as the market didn't settle for months after the inauguration.

Confidence comments:
(I said) Business decision-makers will become comfortable de-coupling their decisions in the real world from abstractions like the Dow. But once that fog clears, the impact of government intervention on national debt and as a general signal of the new regulatory environment will be a drag on growth.
What happened:
Ooo. Seems I was on the money; particularly regarding new regulations - and predicted tax law changes. Yet something went unsaid - the new normal of a higher savings rate, less consumer spending on credit, and general 'new religion' took hold on main street.

So there you go, there's a lot more to the year past than a brief blog post, and others would question some of my inferences, but in the end I was more pessimistic than necessary - or perhaps just more realistic - about the real state of the 'main street' economy. But the reality is far more immediate than Wall Street prognostications... to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, "Are you better off today than you were a year ago?"

Happy New Decade.

Do The Math

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)

Nowhere to hide

So we found out this week that the Texas Rangers' Josh Hamilton fell off the wagon last January. And from the photos (note there is no link attached to that word, at least from this blog - I'll get to that in a moment) he landed hard. The married Hamilton, offered a second chance at baseball after falling into drugs while a young ballplayer convalescing an injury, was photographed drinking, carousing, and essentially behaving like a fratboy at his first kegger. Unfortunate, but not unexpected. Experts say relapses in recovery are common. Fortunately for Hamilton, he told his family and team the very next day so this story is old news now, some eight months later - at least to those who matter.

Olympic phenom Michael Phelps was photographed months ago taking a bong hit at a college party. (I blogged on the topic here.) He lost some major endorsements, apologized, and hopefully learned an important lesson. Whether that lesson is "Just Say No" or "make sure you can trust the people you party with" is unknown, but truth is, both are valid lessons.

I'm not linking to or reposting any of these related images, and I'm not going to comment with some false air of indignation about the behavior of these athletes. I actually tend to take the position of SNL comic Seth Meyer in this outstanding SNL rant. ("If you're at a party and you see Michael Phelps smoking a bong and your first thought isn't "Wow, I get to party with Michael Phelps" and instead you take a picture and sell it to a tabloid, you should take a long look in the mirror...") It isn't in my nature to build people up just for the thrill of tearing them down - as if accomplished, public people were nothing more wooden blocks stacked by some sugar-ravaged five year old. In my experience, most tend to punish themselves just fine on their own.

My marketing mind however pauses and recognizes that each of us, our companies, and our values are subject to the whims of small minded people and rabid opponents who are using the tools of the Internet and social media to gain even the most morally tenuous ground or simply force their way onto the 15 minute stage with a sensational bit of useless gossip. Therefore, it is critical that people and organizations not ignore these new communication tools, but engage them to monitor and proactively defend their brand - whether corporate, product, or personal. As social media consultant Shama Kabani stated in a recent presentation to CEO Netweavers, "...whether or not you want (photos and personal information) out there, its out there. The point is to build up a credible persona in person and online to counter any negative consequence."

Fortunately for Hamilton and Phelps, they've handled their scandals well, offering quick acknowledgment and heartfelt apologies. In the end, the best revenge is their stellar athletic performances since. In the few days since the Hamilton story became public, he's been hitting .360, and for his part, last week Phelps once again set a new world record, this time in the 100m fly. Sometimes the best response is continue to do what you do best.

Or in other words, in a world where all the hiding places are mic'd, let the world know that you are still trying to be the people our dogs think we are.

Noisy launches

Here's something startling obvious that often gets lost in the noise of an exciting product launch:

The product is the thing.

The company is not the thing. (An exception perhaps is Apple - which uses its powerful corporate brand to great effect.)

The distribution channel is not the thing. (Your distributors may incorrectly argue the point, especially VARs.)

And most certainly, the ad is not the thing. (Your agency's creatives may disagree, especially if the ads are spotlighted in an article like this one in Advertising Age.

Once you go down the path of suggesting that a "creepy" and "unsettling" advertisement is "doing its job" because people are talking about the advertisement (and not the product per se) you can quickly find yourself sliding down a slippery slope trying to quantify 'mindshare' and 'visibility'.

To be certain, if the ads are effective, they'll be talked about... but more importantly, so will the product. A truly effective advertisement quickly steps back and allows the product to take the spotlight.

After all, no one wants to hear the announcer keep talking once the band takes the stage.

Because Results Matter

Because Results Matter. I own that phrase as a domain. It is the Strategy180 slogan, and more than that, its the way we approach clients and projects. It is also the way that I think that all agencies - and their marketer clients - should view their relationships.

But they don't, and in the process, lower the bar of expectations and underestimate the value and influence of marketing.

And now the King himself - the Burger King - must understand that 'visibility' and 'mindshare', even 'frequency' and 'reach' are tools and metrics, not goals. This article in Ad Age indicates that the award-winning Burger King campaign is failing to gain ground - even cedeing it - to that ubiquitous clown and his league of banal but effective advertising and market positioning. When the much-lauded ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment) is in negative territory, even today's stock market looks like a better bet.

Because Results, after all, Matter.

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