New Wave Marketing 101 - Shine On You Crazy Diamond

Let's agree: marketing today is a mess: amateurs, cowards, copycats, and dead boring B2B. So stop complaining, I say to myself, and offer a solution.

Well, I have one... thanks to Roger Waters and Stephen Mitchell. You know the former Pink Floyd genius but not the latter. Mitchell is the author of numerous books on religion, zen, history, and poetry and did the absolute best translation of the Tao, hands down, bar none (see http://www.stephenmitchellbooks.com/transAdapt/taoTeChing.html). And his translation of Rilke's poetry can bring you to tears if you're so inclined (see http://www.stephenmitchellbooks.com/transAdapt/poetryRilke.html).

The advice these two gave me applies to Zen, music, and marketing: shine in your original brilliance, as Mitchell put it. Shine on you crazy diamond, says Roger Waters.

What does this mean? Well, the keywords are 'original' and 'crazy'. Once upon a time, we were brilliantly unique. Then circumstance, age, and experience made us dull and common—just like marketing today.

But I think Americans, in particular, not only (I took an advanced degree in American Culture, so I'm prejudiced), can slough off the dust with a playful shake (paraphrasing Walt Whitman) and return to our original brilliance.

How? Well... what made you want to be a writer in the first place? No one ever said, "I want to write so I can compose tired, dull ads that are mostly lies." No fledgling graphic artist ever said, "I want to copy other people's work and turn art into a commodity."

None of us ever sought to maintain the status quo. We all, at one time or another, wanted to push the boundaries, didn't we?

I'm not here to explain why we lost our brilliance. I guess most answers would start with fear: of losing our jobs, of not making a payday, of facing angry clients, or of failure itself.

There's no blame to place. Let's all agree that, say, we do something once a week for the sheer hell of it... something extraordinary to flaunt our talents, push the limits, and make people laugh, scream, or cry. Just once a week, let's promise we'll return to our original brilliance... the ideas, talents, and passions that made us want to be in this business in the first place.

If our brilliant work goes nowhere, so what? Unenlightened clients won't like it, but that's their loss, not ours. Let it be our way of showing that commercial success isn't the only thing we care about. Let it be our gift to younger generations... let them see what we once possessed and still possess. Let's show ourselves that we still have talent regardless of age, economic status, or level of success.

Once a week, show your original brilliance -- shine on you crazy diamond!

Paula Deen Gets Railroaded… I Still Don’t Like Her, But Fair Is Fair

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What a week for the fried chicken queen. And let me say up front that I have used Ms. Deen’s catering service and the food was wonderful! Amazing fried chicken, some of the best I’ve ever had; and I’m no rookie when it comes to chicken and greens and grits. I’ve been married to an Alabama woman for 40 years whose mom is a first-rate, classic southern cook.

With that confession, I’ll also admit that I don’t like Paula’s persona, or anyone who makes a living being ‘southern’ or ‘a NYC wise guy’ or ‘a cynical New Englander’. I dislike all of that regionalist shtick. We’re Americans, ain’t we? Ms. Deen, and all who make a living exaggerating local eccentricities, are simplistic caricatures, at best, and almost instantly boring (like the blue collar comedians – they start out funny then fizzle out altogether and do Prilosec commercials, y’all).

But Ms. Deen has been given a cruel beating for no reason, other than she’s a loud southern woman and we don’t like that. First, let’s be honest – how many times in our lives have we used the N-word? (And the word is nigger, why can’t we say it in context? What are we afraid of?)

In my lifetime, hundreds: it was a common and ignorant term in the 60s and 70s. Yes, we’ve thankfully overcome some hurtful talk, but don’t ask Ms. Deen and those of her age to rewrite history. And isn’t that what the media is doing? Matt Lauer’s question about how many times she said ‘nigger’ is childish and inflammatory and almost requires Ms. Deen to lie.

‘Hey Matt, how many times have you said the N-word? Or Jew? Or dago? Or towel head? Or cracker?’ How many polocks does it take to change a light bulb? How do you get an Italian girl pregnant? These derogatory words and jokes are rampant among all colors and creeds… that’s not a good thing, just a fact. (Again, as a culture we are getting better at this, more sensitive to other’s feeling, less fearful.)

But now the media judges Ms. Deen to be racist? You duplicitous bastards!

Here's what really gets me angry: from a marketing perspective I loath the PR companies and ‘experts’ who are filling the airways with cowardly advice for Ms. Deen: “Be repentant, say you’re sorry, swallow your pride, etc., etc., etc.” Bull. What did all of that get her, including the tears, after the Lauer interview? Nothing.

Some jackass from a reputation management company in California was on CNN pontificating about how Ms. Deen should atone for her N-word sin. Worst advice ever.

Here is mine: Don’t apologize. If you’ve hurt anyone’s feelings, you’re sorry, but feelings are easily hurt and angry people can’t really be helped.

Say this: “As a woman who grew up in the South, I occasionally used the word – as do both black and white employees in my restaurants… but only occasionally. I’m over 65 years old; if I’ve used the word 50 times it’s less than once a year. 

“Look at the bulk of my employees, black and white… they haven’t claimed racism in the 25 years I’ve been in business. Explain that.

“I’m a cook, not a political figure – I have no need to be politically correct, only to treat people as I wish to be treated. Call me a redneck bitch, I don’t care. I don’t bring lawsuits; I don’t claim you’ve hurt me at some deep level. And I don’t think that makes you prejudiced against women or the south. Rather, it makes you human and we’re all ignorant and angry at one time or another... like when someone has a gun to your head."

Case closed. The more she apologizes and cries and plays ‘queen for a day’ the longer this beating will last… the more people will kick her when she’s down… the longer this episode will define her career.

And ultimately, how can Ms. Deen be hurt? She has millions. Her followers will give her more support, not less. Those who didn’t like her (I’m one) might begin to feel some sympathy (I do).

Paula, please… stop listening to these reputation sissies who always ask you to be humble… who demand an apology. Heroes don’t apologize… and you are a heroic, single mom entrepreneur who took her limited talents and built them into an empire.

Good for you. You have created something, which is more than anyone can say for the Matt Lauer’s of the world who have no creative talent other than the back seat driving skills to criticize.

“Matt, you’re not fair and you can’t hurt me… so ask an intelligent question or please shut up.”

Better yet, stay off of that insipid show. (Next on The Today Show… sensible shoes for summer!)

What whores these media people be.

Marketing 101: If You Meet Buddha on the Road?

Marketing is full or irony. Or maybe it’s just a Zen activity that lends itself to statements like, “If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him.” That’s a simple Zen puzzle which means, in essence, that if you see something you think to be Buddha, kill it (in your mind) because it is not Buddha (and it is keeping you from realizing the REAL Buddha essence that’s inside you).

OK, enough with the puzzle. Here’s my Zen/Marketing puzzle, ironic statement, of the day:

In anything you do vis a vis marketing and advertising, if the majority of people like the concept then it is not new enough and thus not good enough!

Chew on that for a minute.

The wisdom of this statement flows from several ‘facts’ about consumers, be they B2B or B2C.

1.    Consumers only want what’s new and what’s hard to get, they rarely want anything else.

2.    New, by definition, is something unseen and unexpected... the first iPhone, for example.

3.    Now here’s the irony – while people want new they don’t like new, at least not at first. New is disconcerting by the fact that its not immediately understood.

It should be coming clear: when you present an idea for a marketing strategy or new ad, not everyone will like what’s truly new and different because of statements #2 and #3 above. Eventually they may love the idea, but at first they will not; and to support their dislike, the fear of the unknown, they will criticise and naysay to cover for the lack of insight and courage they are demonstrating. It’s human nature. We all do it more times than we care to admit.

So, any supposedly new concept that everyone likes is, by definition, not new enough… and thus given #1 above, it will fail to capture the consumer’s interest.

As the song says ‘Isn’t It Ironic?’ And I can tell you that from an agency point of view, it gets hard to keep presenting new idea after new idea only to have each shot down, or worse, watered down until everyone in the room likes it.

Again – if everyone likes it, it’s not new enough, not good enough. Have the courage to challenge your customers and your management with something that is truly new. The rewards will be great.

Here’s a true story. Many years ago we did a series of proposed ads for a client with a product that measured the temperature on a circuit board through various stages of a reflow oven to guarantee that necessary levels were met and not exceeded and components weren’t either toasted or ready to drop off.

Our headline (which I still recall almost 20 years later):

It’s board #16, 515 through the oven… how do you know it’s been soldered correctly?

This was the clear winner of the six ads we presented on the day. The guy looks at the ads, tapes them up on the wall and asks about a dozen employees to have a look… including, now get this, the woman who happened to pass by as she was sweeping the floors and dusting the offices. Honest to God!

Needless to say he went with the concept they all agreed was best… we vehemently argued our case, but the client gets what the client wants (and will pay for).

The ad did OK… covered the cost of running it. The superior ad, however, would have pushed sales and the company image off the charts (the technology was first rate and could live up to the claim). The company is still in business, still struggling in the middle of the pack… probably still afraid to kill Buddha unless the cleaning lady gives them the nod.

Have You Ever Been Experienced?

I have – in the conventional sense and, I’ll admit, also in the terms to which Hendrix is referring. Sure, we all agree experience is a good thing; but as in everything else, too much is often a problem.

Here’s my history in a nutshell: 27 years working with words as editor and publisher of international B2B mags and a national consumer magazine with a circ of 450,000. US Director of a two-continent PR agency in B2B. Creative director for consumer/nutraceutical marketing company, helping to create print ads and produce TV ads that have sold more than half a billion in the span of five years. Published literary critic and short story writer. Adjunct professor (fancy name for part-time) teaching comp and rhetoric, American lit and world lit.

As musicians say, I’ve got the chops. (And by the way, I was a professional musician who spent nearly 10 years on the road working six nights a week.)

OK, so I’m experienced; but does that make me the best person to hire for, say, an ad agency or marketing company or magazine publisher?

Not really. In fact, my years of experience with their concomitant successes and failures may make me less of an asset: someone who rests on past accomplishments and has little drive; someone who focuses on how it used to be done not how it can be done; or worse, someone whose past failures (we all have ‘em, they help us grow, etc.) blind him/her to today’s new potentials?

I argue that post-2008 EVERYTHING has changed when it comes to marketing and consumer behavior. Logically, then, maybe all my experience is an anchor not a balloon.

I was reading a cheesy book about creative thinking and the author asked this question: why is it that older, professional golfers, those past 40, can’t win anymore? They can still hit the ball plenty far and are as accurate as younger golfers if not more so. Still, they can’t win… why?

Maybe because experience blinds them to opportunities during the course of a tournament. They can’t win because their past won’t let them conceive of the one shot that clinches the round. Or maybe they can still conceive of the shot but are too afraid to try it.

I’m just saying experience isn’t all it’s cracked up to be… particularly when it comes to this new era of marketing where past is not necessarily prologue… unless, that is, you’ve been able to maintain a young, unclouded perspective with the willingness, energy and curiosity to continue experimenting and learning. Otherwise, all the practical knowledge in the world won’t help you become a better 2012 marketer.

If you’re 50-plus, take a look in the mirror before you moan and groan about today’s inexperienced marketers. Their lack of a track record may be a big reason for the clever successes that leave you scratching your head.

Here endeth the sermon.

(OK, so now I’m thinking about the other ‘experienced.’ That sure was a way to radically shift your perspective and it only took a few hours… but no, I don’t have the courage to give that one more try. Some things are best left to the young.)

Strive To Be the Best? Poppycock!

Sometimes someone says something that is so pithy it concisely encapsulates the essence of a philosophy, an artistic movement and occasionally life itself. ‘Do Unto Others’ is life in a nutshell, isn’t it?

Let’s talk marketing.

How many companies have we all worked with or for (there’s a big difference, in case you didn’t know) that talk about and strive to be ‘the best’? Almost everyone focuses on it… some companies are manically driven by the concept, particularly those run by or started by engineers, PhDs, MDs or techies.

So sad that so many otherwise smart people actually believe that ‘the best’ product wins. And all around them, life shows each day that being the best is no guarantee of anything. Is Selma Hayek married to the best looking man in the world? No. Is Warhol’s soup can anywhere near the best painting in the world (by any definition of ‘best’ you choose)? A big, fat it's worth $20 million no.

Anyway, here’s the pithy statement that sums up marketing in a flash of insight: “Don’t strive to be the best; strive to be unique.”

First, ‘the best’ is indefinable for most markets and products. Marketing isn’t sports… there’s no timer or scoreboard or tape measure to tell me that I’m the ‘best’ sprinter or pole vaulter in the world. And when it comes to advertising, even the courts have ruled that saying you’re ‘the best’ is what they call 'puffery' (worthless advertising hype that consumers don’t believe so you can claim it all you like).

“So, what are you saying? That I shouldn’t strive to be the best?” That’s exactly what I’m saying.

Why fixate on being the ‘best’ if the goal can’t be defined? It’s like striving to be ‘splendiferous’.

And even if you could develop ‘the best’ widget, there’s no guarantee even one consumer will by it.

Strive to be, in Seth Godin’s words, ‘remarkable’ and/or strive to be ‘unique’. Remarkable sells, unique sells, life’s staples sell (like food and water and sex)… nothing else sells.

All you techies out there, you engineers, you scientists… use your intelligence and common sense and life’s experiences to get a grasp on marketing realities 101. In the vast, vast, vast majority of cases, marketing success (which translates into sales and fame and fortune) isn’t bestowed upon the best. Think about it rationally for once, will you?

(Isn’t rationality what you claim to be ‘the best’ way of arriving at a decision?)

The Debate Between Words v. Pictures Is Over: Words Win!

You don’t believe me, do you? Adam, Nedly, Elson, Andy, Paul and all the first rate graphics people I’ve had the pleasure to work with – you still don’t believe me.

But here’s what you don’t know…

In Sunday’s London Times (13 November) there was an article entitled “Uglies can’t hide on the net.” I’d link everyone to it but it’s a paid subscription. So trust me on this. (I will save the article to show you all when we next meet!)

The article is about online dating and how women judge the attractiveness of men.

Wait for it... attractiveness is based on what the men write about themselves and NOT, repeat NOT on the photos that are put online. This is a scientific study, not a cosmeceutical “three out of four women think they look better” sort of thing.

It seems that confident men convey this attribute through their words… women sense the confidence, which attracts them and implies the man is successful regardless of what the picture looks like!!!!!!

They’re looking at Quasimodo yet when they read the words – the WORDS – they find his ugly visage attractive. Isn’t that Sales 101? Isn’t that Direct Marketing 101?

Case closed, I win… at some primordial level, people (OK, to be fair, maybe this just applies to women) are convinced by and give away their hearts, so to speak, to words… as if there's a genetic mandate to do so… and a subconscious way of 'knowing' that is so powerful it overcomes the actual image.

You guys can buy me that drink now.

It Used to Be Called Public Relations... Now It's Just Plain Lying!

As today's advertising has become almost totally ineffective (because, for the most part, marketers are forced to tell lies about products that simply aren’t good), conventional wisdom says, “PR is the new marketing.”

Makes sense: people are more likely to believe a story that’s well written, is not rife with advertising buzz words and appears in a more ‘neutral’ environment (it doesn’t look like an ad).
But not anymore, thanks to companies like BP, Chase, Delta... you know, the big dictatorial firms who think they can spin their way into our hearts. BP’s public response to the Gulf spill was nothing but cynical lies and misdirection: they used PR to blatantly spin the facts, assuming that either we don’t care or are too stupid to see the tricks.

(Consider the PR effort to convince us that the spill was a ‘mere’ 5,000 barrels a day when any fool could look at the live undersea feed and see that BP was telling a porky pie. And what about Tony Hayward’s act in front of a Congressional committee: “I know nothing,” says the new Sgt. Schultz. Still he gets a new job with BP for his 'performance'. He should have gotten fired and prosecuted for being a lying twit!)

Public relations, it used to be called, was an honest way to make a living: a way to help companies ‘relate’ to their clients, deliver important news and company developments, and generally put a human face on a usually cold corporation.

Then came Joseph Goebbels, Nazi propagandist extraordinaire. His theory of telling the ‘big lie’ became Gospel for American PR agencies: whenever a problem arises, lie about it at every turn; tell the same story with the same words and eventually some people will believe.

The once proud American press used to control this foolishness by asking tough questions and doing a bit of ‘journalistic investigation.’ But no more: lack of funds, poor training, reporters that look good but can’t write a lick and Rupert Murdoch have ended adversarial journalism (remember Walter Cronkite?) in favor of the media being in the pocket (they call it, 'embedded') of business and government.

Then add the Internet, where major PR distribution services rarely edit anything (they used to) and online distribution points like Yahoo, Forbes, MarketWatch, etc. publish everything they receive from wire services (it’s an automatic feed), and you can see why it’s easy to spin just about anything with deceptions that are gladly spread by the media.

(Ironically, just as the Net has helped spread PR lies, it has also helped to reveal these lies: companies and PR departments are too stupid to understand that any facts they put out can now be instantly checked. The phony BP spill estimate was countered by a dozen experts within a few minutes of its release, so what good did BP’s lie do for the company?)

Here’s my (long-winded) point: we all know, without doubt, that PR is a manipulative lie and not a creative, informative, honest story. There's not a single grain of truth in any of it, at least as it's practiced by most 'too big to fail' corporations.

So, if consumers know that ads are lies and PR efforts are based on lies… what’s left for intelligent marketers?

May Goebbels continue to rot in hell, along with a few of the geniuses in the PR departments of egotistical multinational companies. Their lies have done some damage!