6 Marketing Lessons from Charlie Sheen

I know that the conventional wisdom would be to create a blog entry that talks to all the massive PR mistakes Charlie Sheen has made over the past few weeks, but what interest is there in that? You don’t need me to point out what self-destructive tool the guy is. However, for all his past and present mistakes, there is wisdom in his peculiar and colorful dictums of late. Here are just six of the ones that have occurred to me recently:

1. "I have one speed, one gear ... go!"
For many marketers, a successful campaign, event, or launch is followed by a congratulatory cocktail, a week off, and too often, months of coasting. Successful marketing is not an isolated activity, but an on-going, kinetic, dynamic motion of experimentation, execution, strategy, and analysis. There is no ‘N’ on the marketing gearbox.

2. "My motto now is you either love or you hate, and you must do so violently."
Trying to position a product or a company to appeal to the largest number of consumers is the surest way I know of becoming invisible to the market. If you want to build a brand with voraciously loyal adherents, you need to expect a number of voracious haters as well.

3. "I'm tired of pretending like I'm not special."
Misplaced (and often insincere) modesty, an ‘aw shucks’ brand that focuses on countering criticism instead of building on its strengths will have a hard time retaining long-lasting brand loyalty among its users. Consumers of a product want reasons to stay loyal, not a dismissal of their preferences. This is a common issue among large entrenched incumbents in esoteric markets who see this positioning as a defensive posture - mostly so they are not seen as all-powerful behemoths. It can lead to overlooking challenges from smaller players who leverage that positioning to illustrate their own brand’s superiority.

4. "I am on a drug; it's called 'Charlie Sheen.' It's not available 'cause if you try it once you will die. Your face will melt off, and children will weep over your exploded body."
While Charlie likely meant this to be interpreted differently, it serves as a reminder that a company ‘on its own drug’ is susceptible to hearing only the sound of its own voice while ignoring the voices of the consuming public. It’s good to recognize your own successes, but its also helpful to listen to the market once in a while and not be ‘drugged’ into hearing only the echoes of your own glorious past.

5. "We are high priest Vatican assassin warlocks. Boom! Print that, people!"
Make sure your positioning statement, your marketing messages, your promotional materials, the overall impression you leave with prospective customers is dynamic, memorable, and thoroughly differentiated. Charlie has done that in spades.

6. "I've got magic. I've got poetry at my fingertips."
Charlie has magic, a winning smile, and a couple of goddesses.What do you have? Trusted vendors, a quality team? An unbeatable product? Recognize your own resources and make certain you are leveraging each for greatest impact.

So if you follow these six tips from the Warlock, You’re more likely to find yourself in the marketing equivalent of “…a tsumani … riding it on a mercury surfboard."

Product placement as a White Collar crime

I am a proponent of product placement - the 'placement' of 'product' into popular entertainment - movies and television shows mostly. To have characters use real products in the programs can make it more realistic (no one drinks a 'cola' beverage) is less disruptive to the viewer, and is arguably an effective marketing tool.

However, not since the 1950s, when soap operas had housewives offering one another a cup of Folgers, instead of coffee, has product placement been so irritatingly obvious and disruptive. Recently I had to ask myself if Ford so desperate - and show producers so greedy - as to kill the golden goose with far less than subtle product references?

The USA Network basic cable buddy cop show White Collar aired an episode this week that was so overtly pandering as to nearly change my attitude on product placement. It used to be that cop shows would accept a fleet of Fords to chase bad guys. A billboard at the end of the program and a passing glimpse of a logo during a chase scene was all that was required. However, imagine the suspension of belief required to accept this exchange, during a climactic chase scene when a kidnapped FBI agent's life is in danger and a murderer is about to escape:

Good Guy 1, glancing at dashboard as driver (GG2) weaves in and out of midtown traffic: "You have a tree on your dashboard."
Good Guy (Girl) 2: "Yeah, its a hybrid. (ed. note: Really, the FBI in hybrids?) Those leaves tell me how economically I'm driving."
GG1: "Yeah, well, you're dropping a lot of leaves. You sure aren't driving very economically."

Seriously, Jeff Eastin? Racing through traffic after kidnapped FBI agents and a murderer and this is the banal script Ford forces on you? That kind of writing and overt product placement should be a crime. A White Collar crime.

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Top 10 Branding Miscues of 2010... and three more.

Advertising Age magazine, a leading trade publication for the industry, recently published their list of the top 10 marketing and branding miscues of 2010.

Surprisingly, this little bit of breezy popcorn journalism skipped what would have been my #1: The BP Gulf disasater. A bigger marketing disaster would be hard to fathom, as retail gas outlets were boycotted and the PR got worse and worse.

My #2 missed the list too; the inability to 'sell' Obamacare to the American public by the administration. Politics aside, for a man who was elected to 'change', I've seen little of it, particularly given a democratic congress and, in Pelosi, a house speaker able to deflect slings and arrows.

My #3 missed as well... the tarring the TSA was unable to adequately address. There is no depth to the philosophy behnd the mission of the TSA... just a shallow defense that whatever they do must be right because there have been 'no successful domestic attacks' since 2001. That's a weak foundation that will crumble when something, inevitably perhaps, does slip through the cracks.

What are your ideas of the worst marketing and branding miscues of 2010?

The New, New Frugality.

Once again, an opinion in an earlier blog entry was reinforced through research from Booz, Allen and Company. In this report, Booz suggests that the age of frugality in America is a permanent state, much like I suggested here. The reason I bring this up is because, frankly, I like to be right. I also bring it up because I am in the middle of a project for a client who has historically marketed their products on the promise of more for less.

Besides the suggestions I laid out in the earlier post on frugality among consumers, the latest Booz report reminds me that as more marketers get on the bandwagon of frugality, marketing messages and product development, even merchandising and certainly pricing strategy will again equivocate as all marketers take such positioning and make it so much table stakes. So for my client and others like them who applied a value message as a key brand value, it becomes less and less of an effective differentiator.

Note that the New Frugality doesn't mean that everyone is looking for the lowest price, or even the best value. What it does mean is that consumers - including businesses - are looking for reasons to defend the purchases they do make, whether to colleagues, bosses... or themselves.

As marketers, that's the job New Frugality requires of us. Defending our brand and its market positioning. Just like the good ol' days. Again.

Can I hear an Amen?

So, the other day I was thinking about an upcoming sales meeting and product launch plan. My attention turned to sales enablement, branding, and the difficulty in getting salespeople just as fired up as, say, the engineers are, over the latest incarnation of their product. "C'mon, guys, our new AXT4000 Johnson Rod has four times as much monkey oil as the competitor's Johnson Rod!"

Yeah, well, I'm not excited either. And I write this stuff.

So who is excited? Who is so danged fired up that they'd get dressed to the nines and go door to door during their free time to talk to desperate housewives? Who's so convinced of the value of their product that they'd tote their entire families and a forest worth of pamphlets with them to be certain everyone had a chance to share their enthusiasm, including their kids? Who's so completely convinced of the superiority of their value statement that they'd give up everything to take two years to do nothing but sell, sell, sell?

Girl Scouts, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Mormon Missionaries, respectively.

For me I marvel at their commitment even as I brush them off. (I am a salty snack favoring Methodist so thanks, but I'm covered.) When was the last time you encountered a salesperson at your company with the earnestness of a Girl Scout, the persistence of a Witness, or the commitment of a Mormon? Before you complain, maybe you should start with a mirror.

I understand that in technology sales as in other industries, we aren't talking about salvation and deep set belief systems. But that's the point, right? Perhaps we need to approach sales enablement with the fervor of a Chautauqua preacher converting the heathen masses. When was the last time YOU got excited the latest version of software or throughput on a server? And if not, why not?

As you prepare to talk to salespeople about a new product, service, or feature, first answer for them the question they must answer all the time: "Who are you and why should I care?" If you can't answer that with the enthusiasm of an itinerant preacher, you can't expect it from your congregation of salespeople, either.

Even if you threaten their eternal soul.

Deja vu all over again

In this concise epilogue to the BP spill in the gulf, Fast Company points out that:

1. "...it’s clear that in the age of social media, a company can’t spin and rebrand its way out of a mess like it used to."
2. "...it's what companies do, not what they say, that really matters."
3. "...BP is an example of how companies' misfortunes are going to unfold going forward with all the tools and weapons the Internet and social media afford."
4. "Companies screw themselves when they let perception get ahead of reality..."

Gee, where, I humbly ask, did

1. You
2. See
3. That
4. Before?
   

A Shot of Convenience

I got my annual flu shot today. It is only September and I live in a warm climate, so it’s usually approaching November before the local news guilts me into making a trip for the vaccine. They do this of course by warning me repeatedly of the pandemic cataclysm sure to occur if I alone remain the diseased zombie carrier of the latest flu strain named for a farm animal or obscure Asian nation.

Today, however, it was different. With my wife and son hunkered over his History homework, I myself made the weekly trek to our local hated and feared Wal-Mart to pick up a few staples. And there it was, near where I had twice exchanged my cart for one without a thumping or rebellious wheel: The Wal-Mart equivalent of the Mayo Clinic… a makeshift card table, folding chair, forms, syringes, gloves, and two disinterested phlebotomists. They were sandwiched in-between brightly colored plastic back-to-school dorm room accessories and the latest in Jacqueline Smith Signature sweatpants in size XXXL.

As I sat down to fill out the medical form, a small gnat flew between us. “That’s a bit disconcerting,” I mumbled.

Resignedly, the woman filling the syringe sighed, “It’s Wal-Mart.” We nodded silent acknowledgments and I rolled up my sleeve.

So why would I consider Wal-Mart, a discount mecca and focus of great derision by wanna-be cultural elites like myself, for a flu shot requiring sterile surrounds and capable professionals?

Because it was easy. The location was central, required no appointment, no long forms, no insurance hassles (though it was an option); the line was short, the procedure even shorter, and payment a breeze. I got a flu shot and they pulled in 24 dollars in less than a minute. That’s a win-win.

So it is with marketing. If in real estate, its location, location, location, in marketing, its easy, easy, easy. People will pay for convenience. A lot more. We routinely pay a 5000% + mark-up on tap water just for the convenience of a bottle. We’ll exchange good nutrition for the convenience of a drive-through window. And your last oil change involved $6 worth of oil but $20 worth of ‘high school kid with a grease gun’.

If you have an inferior or more expensive product, making it convenient to buy and to use still gives you a shot at success.

And speaking of shots, go get yours today. I hear rumors of a ferocious Tajikistani goat flu this season.

Twitter Quitter

I quit Twitter today. Oh, this isn’t going to be some minimalist manifesto, just a statement of fact.

I deleted my posts, all 1500+ of them, shared over the past two years or so. Some were moving, insightful. Most were fun. None were ever drivel. No one ever knew what I had for breakfast, I never foursquare’d myself into a virtual mayoral coup d’tat, no one knew when I was ill, and only occasionally did I mention the weather. I even gained a friend or two.

I just got tired.

I initially joined Twitter and other social media to remain up to date on the social media communities important to my clients. I even joined MySpace back in the day – closed the account when it became irrelevant to me.

I like to write, and Twitter and Facebook are good virtual water coolers for office at home types like myself. But they are an extension of me, that is, my personal brand, and before every tweet I’d have to consider that. That can be tiring, particularly for someone such as myself, given to dark humor and sarcasm – 140 characters is plenty of room for a zinger, but never enough for context.

So I’m not dropping out in some Luddite fantasy, I’m just lightening my load a bit. I can be distracted and Twitter is nothing if not a distraction. It was one more thing that took my time from things that were clearly more constructive, useful, profitable, enjoyable, important. Like all good business decisions when faced with limited resources (in this case, time) I had to determine if it was core to my business or life, and if I could justify the continued investment in it. The answer was clearly, no. It was not core, and there are other, arguably better ways to market myself and my ideas, and interact with others.

So my Twitter account is inactive. Of course, I’ll stay in touch, though my number of followers will undoubtedly fall sharply in the coming weeks (another invented preoccupation I'll not miss). I’ll follow the Twittersphere for news on how to leverage Twitter in marketing, and from time to time check on tweets from those I follow who continue to leverage Twitter expertly. The end of this relationship is amicable. I can tell you about Twitter. I can help you create a presence on Twitter. I can now see commercial purposes for Twitter I couldn’t see just a few months ago.

But for now, I’ll just be observing.

Purpose over Process

One of my favorite quotes about articulating and pursuing goals is from climber and author Todd Skinner: “To stick to the plan instead of the summit can make you fail to climb the mountain.”

In marketing as in mountaineering, being able to separate the purpose of our actions from the process of our actions is imperative for success. As marketing has wisely moved increasingly toward using analytics to quantify its contribution to the organization, often we can get caught up in the analysis over the objective. It isn’t enough to celebrate the sales directly correlated to a promotion, or the movement of a new product’s valuation from an analyst review following a presentation. These are useful metrics and benchmarks, not the overall objective.

Instead it is important to recognize how those results impact broader corporate goals. The clear articulation of easily understood goals is critical not only in gaining support for your actions, but in identifying when those actions deviate from the intended effect so corrective action can be swift.

The objective is a constant, so be careful that you do not use numbers to defend your actions, but rather to define them. You want to clearly articulate and get support toward the shared organizational objective, not the steps in the process.

No one ever asked Sir Edmund Hillary how many steps he took to reach the summit of Everest.

The Oldest Profession

In this excellent Advertising Age op-ed by Les Marguiles, he addresses the critical importance of the agency-client relationship, or increasingly, the lack of one.

I can boil my take on the piece by suggesting that those marketers who allow their companies to commoditize service companies' efforts deserve what they get in the shoddy product returned from those desperate firms who won a project based on costs and terms alone - and therefore see no long term opportunity with the client.

Conversely, and importantly, those service providers – agencies, consultants, what have you – who accept that their work can be commoditized and are therefore willing to forego basic standards of quality of service, creative, and responsiveness also deserve what they get from clients who take that unique value for granted.

I remind my small agency colleagues of the following exchange, often attributed to Winston Churchill:

Churchill: Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?
Socialite: My goodness, Mr. Churchill… Well, I suppose… we would have to discuss terms, of course…
Churchill: Would you sleep with me for five pounds?
Socialite: Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!
Churchill: Madam, we’ve already established that. Now we are just negotiating the price.

Why you need to be .co dependent

I urge you to .co-operate on this.

Right after you finish reading this blog entry, go to your domain host and purchase your company's URL ‘.co’ domain.

As of today, you can register .co just as you have .com, .net, or .org, and other more obscure ones, such as .me or .name

It will cost you under $30/year but save you headaches. I predict .co will be a popular domain because: a, outside the US, web users already are used to typing .co prior to their country code (eg, .co.uk, for the Brits, .co.nz for the Kiwis); b, it’s a letter short of .com, which is great for typo trolling sites, and of course, c, in the states, it is a suffix for legal companies.

Yes, I might be wrong about the eventual land rush for the .co domain. If so, you’re out $30. If I’m right, you could pay thousands later. I say that’s pretty good insurance.

That’s it. Just this timely advice. No snarky comments, no opinion, no sermonizing. Mostly because I can't, off hand, come up with a good pun using '.co'. If you have one, post it in the comments (the .co mments).

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Why?

Everyone knows that the bane of parents of toddlers everywhere is the repeated question, “Why?”. If a toddler wants to know why the sky is blue, they’ll ask again and again until you move off your initial perfunctory response of “God thought it looked pretty that way” to actually answering the umpteenth “Why?” by explaining the refraction of the sun’s rays on our atmosphere in terms a three-year-old can understand.

“Why?”

Because even an inquisitive toddler knows that asking “Why?” repeatedly is a great way to get to the answer. Not just AN answer. THE answer. There is even a rule of thumb in Six Sigma circles involving the “Five Whys”. It is a Six Sigma tool that doesn't involve statistical hypotheses… and so can be completed without complicated Minitab calculations. Asking “Why?” repeatedly can quickly drill down to the core of a problem saving time by focusing on causes, not just symptoms.

“Why?”

Because in marketing, as in manufacturing, solutions are often not as simple as they may seem initially. There are now layers upon layers of tightly woven inter-related initiatives that build brands and drive leads.

“Why?”

Because marketing today isn’t as linear as it once was. Since 2000, marketing has become increasingly segmented, specialized, and multi-directional. Information is accessible anytime, from a multitude of sources, both positive and negative.

“Why?”

Because technology, namely the Internet, Social Media, Dashboard software, and Web 2.0 have both created new, responsive interactive channels and revealed new ways to measure old (mass media) channels that make marketing far more quantifiable, measurable, accountable and effective than ever before... and marketing needs to embrace this paradigm.

“Why?”

Because if marketing ever wants a seat in the boardroom and to assume its rightful place in setting strategy for the organization, it will need to not only know the right answers, but be sure it is asking the right questions.