Fear itself.

Only a few times in my career have I had to address fear as a key obstacle to a new product introduction.

Of course, fear is ever-present in doing or buying anything new, but not often is it in the top three. And rarely fear, as such. In marketing, that is, in encouraging a buying decision, fear is more often wrapped in something less... well, absolute. Uncertainty, not fear. Caution, not fear. Inertia, not fear.

Fear is more real, more certain, and more an obstacle than any other faced by marketers. Fear as represented by the perceived lack of control. A lack of control is never overcome in the real sense, but only mitigated through trust.

Trust in turn is encouraged through understanding, established with a relationship, built through consistency, preserved through responsiveness, and confirmed through repetition - selling to and buying of - a loyal customer.

That is nothing new, as although it takes longer to overcome, the fear obstacle is addressed by simply doing what we as marketers know we ought to be doing all along... understand our market, develop a relationship with them, deliver products and services with consistent quality, respond quickly and appropriately to problems and questions, ... and repeat. Other than that, it is, ironically, out of our control how quickly we can make customers feel sufficiently in control to try something new.

So when management, sales, or product grow concerned that uptake of a new product or service is slower than predicted, you'll know that all things being equal, simply staying on track and by doing the right things right, it will happen in time.

Comfort them with FDR's words: "The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself."

How much green is there in green?

In a recent price sensitivity analysis conducted by Rockbridge Research, it was discovered that most consumers would purchase a product indicated as 'green' (environmentally friendly) over a 'regular' product of the same type, but only if they were the same price. The study concluded that overall, "...as the green product’s price increases, consumers’ inclination towards it decreases."

Not surprisingly, specific audience categories offering unique attitudes toward the 'green movement' differ in the value they place on such products. Six distinct consumer groups within the overall adult consumer population were identified, with “Green Tech Leaders” willing to pay far more for a green certified product, while “Anti-Greens” are not willing to pay much more at all. That alone is interesting as it still indicates a willingness to perhaps consider the positive social implications of buying green even to those who do not value it themselves. This indicates that green product attributes are valuable, but not widespread enough to accommodate anything but a modest price adjustment.

From a share prospective, a green alternative may move the needle. From a margin perspective, this study indicates that their isn't yet much green in being green.

To learn more about Rockbridge’s Green Technology Segmentation, click here.

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• Nearly all "Eco" Product Claims Are Misleading [Greenwashing] (consumerist.com)

Shackin' up

Quick Quiz: When asked why RadioShack decided to rebrand itself "The Shack", CMO Lee Applbaum stated it was because (choose just one!):

1. We think "shack" conjures up many positive store images.

2. Some customers and the investor community refers to us as "The Shack" already.

3. We can't afford the real Shaq as a spokesperson, and he's in Cleveland now anyhow.

4. Basic research could have told us that "The Shack" is actually a popular Christian novel regarding the anguish of a parent over the rape and murder of his daughter. Oh, well.

5. Because... "The (Love) Shack is a little ol' place where we can get together! (Don't forget your jukebox money!)"


The answer is #2, although any of the answers is equally bad, and equally plausible.

That's right. RadioShack's most avid customers and "the investor community" (really? that's their target with this campaign?) already refer to the company (despairingly, perhaps?) as The Shack, so they figured they'd just co-op the term as their own in a desperate grab to leverage, and therefore destroy, any credible independent brand affinity.

Besides, marketing theory aside, every middle school kid in America already knows that giving yourself a nickname is just lame.

Unpopular popularity

"Nobody goes there anymore, its too crowded" is one of my favorite 'Yogis', so named for the famed Yankees catcher who is perhaps as famed for his unique turn of phrase as his play on the field.

In a study released by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, however, we find that, once again, there is a lot of truth to what Yogi Berra has to say. The study illustrates that the fall of an item or style in popularity mirrors its rise to popularity, so that items that become popular faster also die out faster.

These, my friends, are called fads. The study's authors were quoted as saying that “While it is easy to see products, ideas, or behaviors catch on in popular culture, less in known about why such things become unpopular." And this question is as critical a question to marketers as any.

In a cross-cultural, non-commercial study that harkens to Levitt's book Freakonomics, study authors Berger and Le Mens analyzed baby names in France and the US over the past century. The two researchers found a consistency in the rise and fall of given names - that the longer it took for a name to become common, the longer it took for the name to fall out of use. Parents interviewed indicated that they were simply unwilling to risk saddling their child with a name they perceived as 'faddish'.

For marketers, these results indicate that it is the perception of a trend that makes the creation of a fad self-fulfilling. While somewhat intuitive, there is often no scarcity or other economic factor that forces certain trends that 'hockey stick' in popularity to die out faster. Instead, the concept of 'the harder they fall' is based in the idea that people, for all their concern about fitting in, don’t want to be seen as following the herd. The key is perhaps in not controlling the growth, but in marketing the message - even as sales rise without apparent assistance from 'those guys in marketing' - that the growth is because of the value offered by the fast-growing product or service, and not transient fads.

And that will mean that in addition to trying something, marketing will keep people coming back, even as it gets more crowded.

If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?

If your company or product were a fictional character, who would it be? It's one of the questions I ask when trying to determine the intended brand perception for a client. And I get more than my share of rolled eyes from the engineers in the room.

But consider your own response to this question: If you were thirsty, where would you likely find an ice-cold Obama? Next to the Dr. Pepper or nearer the energy drinks?

If you called your friend, would you expect to pick up and dial the McCain or are you more likely to just go online and 'poke' them on Obamabook? Maybe you'd discuss the McCain supertanker that is caught in a storm off the gulf coast, or the latest music player from iObama.

You can think about this when you pick up a snack of some organic dried fruit at Obama Foods for your flight to Chicago on McCain Airways.

Okay, the whole thing is silly. But now reverse that:

If you were thirsty, where would you likely find an ice-cold McCain? Next to the Dr. Pepper or nearer the energy drinks?

If you called your friend, would you expect to pick up and dial the Obama or are you more likely to just go online and 'poke' them on McCainbook? Maybe you'd discuss the Obama supertanker that is caught in a storm off the gulf coast, or the latest music player from iMcCain.

You can think about this when you pick up a snack of some organic dried fruit at McCain Foods for your flight to Chicago on Obama Airways.

Relatively speaking, the former made more sense, didn't it? And it proves out the power of branding on not only our perceptions of products, but perceptions of our leaders, our friends, and ourselves.

This important article was sent to me by a designer with whom I do much of Strategy180's branding work. It underscores the power of branding and how it may not only impact the can of soup we put in our grocery basket, but the future leadership of the world's last great superpower.

Perhaps now you might want to budget for that branding study, yes?

An Old School Measurement Discounts the Internet

In my salad days selling radio, one of the compelling reasons for radio was its influence on individuals at the point closest to the point of sale – that is, in the car on their way to go shopping. It intimated radio’s conversion - the power of radio to convert listeners to buyers. A recent survey took a similar notion – influence on the consumer’s buying decision – and it doesn’t look good for new media.

Regarding electronics, "The Internet and Consumer Choice” study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that just 27% of mobile phone sales were significantly impacted by the web. The figure was only 23% for real estate, and surprisingly (to me, anyway) only 17% for music choices. (I’m a big fan of Pandora.com and its ability to introduce new artists, so perhaps I’m a bit of an early adopter there.)

Still, the role of the internet in researching purchases has not changed – 90% of respondents indicated that they still use the web for product research. For marketers, that means that on the web, content is still king – and that market awareness, visibility, credibility and brand building are critical on product websites. Conversion, however, appears to remain elusive.

Think radio. My former employers would love me for that plug.

80/20, myths, and choice

We often think of myths as ancient Greek folktales of Gods and warriors, or in a business seetting, platitudes like 'the customer is always right' (they aren't) and 'the check is in the mail (it isn't).

I built a personal philosophy in my early days using Pareto's Principle, otherwise known as 'the 80/20 rule', believing that it had a place in every fabric of the universe and would, one day, be a key part of the 'meaning of it all'.

Today however, that which was once seen and known is more and more a myth... technology has unwound Pareto, that which I once thought was the very fabric of being.

20% of buyers produce 80% of the profits
20% of staff produce 80% of the results
..and so forth.

Not so fast.

As much as the 80/20 rule has become a standard researchers at the MIT suggest that technology has diminished its influence. The book The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More by Chris Anderson suggests this as well. In fact, the book can be found on Amazon.com, where lesser-known titles are now producing 40% of Amazon.com’s revenue.

The long tail at Amazon has been described thusly: “Amazon sold more books today that didn’t sell at all yesterday than Amazon sold today of all the books that did sell yesterday.”

Read that twice. (The long tail refers to the infinite outlier in a standard bell curve.)

In a new MIT report, “Goodbye Pareto Principle, Hello Long Tail: The Effect of Search Costs on the Concentration of Product Sales”, researchers discovered that when comparing catalog to online sales in womens clothing, the 80/20 was only applying to mail order catalog sales. The 80/20 was moot online.

Of course, Pareto still has influence in the natural world: 20% of the trees will still grow 80% of the apples, and you'll still spend 80% of your time with 20% of your friends, but when it comes to the Laws of Choice, it’s changing the way we do business.

The ying and the yang

I hear all the time that if the customer were simply a, well-informed, and b, rational, a sale would be easy. Well, I'm here to tell you that these represent the two ways to make the sale, and both can be leveraged through effective marketing communication.

If your offering is indeed the smart choice for your customer, then by all means, help your customer get smarter. Educative sales, or consultative sales are effective in this vein, where your marketing communications are targeted toward speaking opportunities, bylines, blogs, and high-profile media relations efforts. This appeals to the educated, rational value buyer. Yer all rational buuyers have a streak of irrationality, so...

If your offer requires a change in impression, assumption, habit; or if you need to compete not on utility and value but on fashion and emotion (irrational) then by all means appeal to the emotions of the buyer - even in a business to business space - to drive out considerations on a strictly formal qualitative form. "Nobody ever got fired by buying IBM" isn't a commonly understood mantra because itt is rational, it is the result of the emotion of fear on the part of the buyer. Tap into fear, lust, comfort, or any of the other 14 or so emotional triggers and fill a need - albeit an emotional one.

Embrace the rational and irrational buying signals as opportunities, not barriers.