The Business Insider

The Age of Outrageous Ideas

By Jack B. Rochester, Managing Editor

A remark attributed to the great French philosopher Voltaire goes something like this: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." It seems a fitting phrase for the plethora of views of our modern world, economic systems, ways of life, etcetera: think of a problem or issue and somebody's written an article, blog, or book on how to correct it.

The latest entry is Joshua Cooper Ramo, weighing in with his first book, The Age of the Unthinkable. Ramo, a former editor at Time [a magazine - remember?] and currently employed by Kissinger Associates [yes, that Kissinger], gives us a great read and much to think about regarding aspects of the world and its systems that we can do next to nothing about.

Books of this seem to be proliferating. They're reviewed in the New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, and at the book's Amazon Web page. Who reads them? Or even parts of them? Why do publishers think we'll buy them?

How about you - what book of outrageous ideas are you reading, and why? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Cheers,
Jack

"Getting" Market Segmentation

By Jack B. Rochester, Managing Editor

Tuesday night, June 9, Boston: cold, spitting rain, the Red Sox playing the Yankees at Fenway. Instead, I went to see a band called The Decemberists at the Bank of American Pavilion. A tent, really, dry but not warm. Robyn Hitchcock and his mates tried to warm up the audience, but it took the poofs of smoky mist and the appearance of 34-year-old Colin Meloy and his band to do the trick.

It did. The crowd of about 5,000 was on their feet about fifteen minutes into the performance and remained standing throughout.

I looked around: lots of young people, of course, most of whom wore jeans and short haircuts but no nose rings or colored Mohawks. Quite a few older people, making this 64-year-old feel not so out of place.

What amazed me was the power of this album to draw these people out. We sat next to a thirty-something marketing guy named Ken, whose doctor-wife was otherwise busy and, on a whim, mostly because he really loves this album and this band, decided to attend.

Released in April, "The Hazards of Love" debuted at the South By Southwest music festival in March. This extraordinary piece of music: a rock opera, a novel set to music, a concept album - whatever tag you may wish to hang about its neck - is by any measure an extraordinary artistic creation. It tells the story of a maiden named Margaret and her lover, William, who navigate the shoals and breakers of life in the era of Middle English, the land and times of Sir Lancelot and Guinevere, and Romantic Love.

It is also a brilliant feat of marketing. I would never have guessed that so many people in Boston would attend this concert, much less even know of this relatively obscure band from Portland, Oregon, and its brilliant leader and composer, Colin Meloy. The music itself harkens back to the heyday of folk rock - think Fairport Convention - and Elizabethan era social mores, music, and poetry.

Meloy tells the story of writing "The Hazards of Love" here, but the real story is in how he put the act together. Meloy and his band wear suits and ties onstage, although the coats soon come off and there he stands, a somewhat pudgy guy with a flop of hair hanging over his glasses, surely obscuring his vision, long sideburns-cum-muttonchops on his cheeks, his tie knotted, shirtsleeves rolled up, button suspenders holding his trousers up as he plays his acoustic guitar and sings his heart out. It is utterly captivating.

I first heard "The Hazards of Love"  broadcast over NPR  - you still can -  when The Decemberists first performed it live at SXSW. And yes, I was captivated. I bought the CD, and as I began talking about the album and the group, I learned that I was not alone in not having heard of them. However, since then, their notoriety has spread far and wide: witness filling the BofA Pavilion last night. I stood among people who danced and and sang the lyrics, not just of "Hazards," but many other songs from their repertoire the band played in their second set.

It's somewhat difficult to peg The Decemberists. They clearly have roots in folk music - more Shawn Colvin than Pete Seeger - but they really rock as well (and are referred to in the rock genre) as witnessed in their cover of Heart's "Crazy on You," which drove the crowd nuts. But the point is, they break the rules and conventions with "Hazards."

So here's Takeaway One: As marketers, we should never assume - presume? - we understand the who and what of our market. The unfolding popularity of The Decemberists is a case study in how one performance or venue - can morph a single market into many others - SXSW to NPR to a nationwide concert tour still going on months later and far into the future.

It is also an example of how an operatic suite, made up of seventeen interconnected songs, nearly an hour in length, can fly in the face of a market where everyone thinks buyers only want to purchase single tunes. And Takeaway Two: Don't let your mindset too closely define your the segmentation or differentiation product or service - otherwise, you might not "get it."

Cheers,
Jack

Jack B. Rochester is a professional writer and editor who has worked in nearly every aspect of publishing since 1974. He heads Joshua Tree Interactive, and is Managing Editor of The Business Insider blog.

Wanted: New Tricks 4 Old Dog. Must Be EZ to Lrn.

Ok, I've figured out LinkedIn. Worked well. Got some business.

But FaceBook? MySpace?  And Twitter!  Geez, I don't know.

I write stuff for a living. I also coach adults and students in Standard English grammar and writing. I do classes for corporations to show their employees how to avoid bad business English and write in a clear manner distinct from the scratchings of other primates.

Why should I be on Facebook? Or is it MySpace? Should I use those and, if so, which one?

But hear me now: I refuse to run sordid pictures of myself because I am, well, no longer a teenager. To say the least.

And Twitter. What's all the twitter about Twitter? Why should I need to know where my wife is every three minutes, let alone someone else? And I don't need to know where Jack Rochester or Tim Rosa is every five minutes, although Jack will often tell me.

Geez. What's the big deal here. What am I missing.

Or am I really missing something important?

Roger Peterson

Your New Client: The Roman Catholic Church

By Roger S. Peterson, Contributing Editor

A quick disclaimer: I am an ex-Catholic who survived eight years of Catholic education. Very ex. I recall vividly the nuns and how their twisted minds stayed up all night planning horrors on us children. And even though I am an ex-Catholic, I was embarrassed at what happened to the President at Notre Dame University.

I wondered if any survey of Notre Dame female students would reveal how many use birth control pills?  I'd guess 80%. I wondered what the pregnancy rate is at Notre Dame. I wondered if it is as high as Utah's, another place filled with people who see life as stark black-and-white silos and obsess about other people's sex lives.   

And I wondered if the anti-abortion protesters at Notre Dame picketed any pedophile priests or bishops on behalf of their young victims.

No, I would guess not. I guess Catholics have to be so very silent about that issue. Don't want to remind people of church hypocrisy and illegalities. Ishy business, that.

But then I remember something my own pastor once said, "I've never known a happy priest."
 

As a marketing guy, I had a terrible dream last night. The Catholic Church asked me to be their public relations strategist. Geez, what a cold sweat that was. Lisa Miller wrote about this potential client in the May 25th issue of Newsweek. The article, aptly named, "How to sell a better pope."

It is clear to me that Catholic zealots such as Bill Donohue are using the anti-abortion campaign to divert attention away from hundreds of years of the Vatican's attempt to manage a desperately sick organization. And Radzinger, the new pope, is another example of how not to manage public statements and excuses. Imagine having to present him with a marketing plan.

But be my guest. I pass the dream to you. What would you do with this nightmare client?

Roger

Roger S. Peterson heads his own marcomm consulting firm in Rocklin, California. He is an American Marketing Association Professional Certified Marketer (PCM), an educator, and co-author The Secret to Incentive Program Success: Incentive ROI that makes bean counters smile!, the AMA Handbook For Managing Business To Business Marketing Communications and The Magic Megaphone.

Your Next Marketing Client: Daily Metro Newspapers

By Roger S. Peterson, Contributing Editor

As if newspapers are not suffering enough, now comes another journalistic slip: Relying upon Wikipedia for information.

We all should know that Wikipedia is too easy to use. Yes, often when I search in Google, the Wikipedia entry will emerge first. But I know from personal areas of expertise that Wikipedia entries are often political and slanted.

And sometimes just plain wrong. For examples, a student in Dublin made up a quote that was used by several newspapers. Several quality newspapers. On several continents, too.

So why would a journalist use anything from Wikipedia? Recently I visited the newsroom at The Sacramento Bee after a layoff and spoke with a writer I've known for years. I asked, "How's it going?" He lowered his voice and nodded his head toward three colleagues who had six weeks left.

It's the old story about fewer people having to pick up the slack for laid-off workers. Journalists have quotas as well as deadlines. Few of us can handle the pressure of a daily deadline of quotas - I know I couldn't.

On May 10, Maureen Dowd wrote about newspapers in her column for The New York Times. In it she quotes a former Baltimore Sun reporter, David Simon, who created The Wire. He claims that high-end journalism is dying and when that happens, when no one is manning the cop shops and zoning boards, America will enter "a halcyon era for state and local political corruption."

Meanwhile, my 24-year-old son thinks The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is real news.

In the same issue of the Times, Frank Rich wrote about the state of metro dailies in an op-ed aptly entitled "The American Press on Suicide Watch." His final comment is that we will get what we pay for. 

Here's your takeaway: So your client is the collective called metro dailies. Rich points out that we all once received free television through rabbit ears, but now gladly pay for cable. Unfortunately, that is not a good comparison. Television started as everything for everybody: We all watched Milton Berle because he was Saturday night. Cable broke up the audience into distinct demographic, and even psychographic, groups, e.g. sports nuts, cooking fans, travel lovers, history buffs.

Newspaper print editions are still general in audience in spite of separate sections and geographically zoned editions. Only a few big newspapers, each with unique selling propositions, transcend the problem: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and USA Today.

So, presuming you want to remain an informed citizen who benefits from inquisitive journalists who are keeping an eye on the county boards and especially state legislators, what's your marketing plan?

Don't say local television news. In every instance in which local TV crews covered a story I was close to, the crews got it wrong. Even NBC News got it very wrong the one time they interviewed me. Sorry, Brian Williams. A print journalist knows how to dig and knows how to write and has the luxury of deep and lengthy coverage. TV news does none of those things well.

Yes, I am biased: I like newspapers and trust them. I do not trust Jon Stewart [remember, this is a comedy show, not a news broadcast] or community weeklies. I am insulted when Lindy Lipgloss bats her eyes into a TV camera and uses her breathy voice to throw out histrionic promos about "film at 11!"  I am smarter than she is and I know it. I want the analysis of someone smarter than I.

Frank Rich is right. We will get what we pay for. Do you trust your city and state government to put aside special interests and always spend your tax dollars wisely? If not, what's your plan for the survival of local metro newspapers?

Roger Peterson

Roger S. Peterson heads his own marcomm consulting firm in Rocklin, California. He is an American Marketing Association Professional Certified Marketer (PCM), an educator, and co-author The Secret to Incentive Program Success: Incentive ROI that makes bean counters smile!, the AMA Handbook For Managing Business To Business Marketing Communications and The Magic Megaphone.

Your new marketing client: The Republican Party

By Roger S. Peterson, Contributing Editor

My political life is a classic metamorphosis. As a college student in Minnesota, the DFL Party (Minnesota's version of the Democrats) was my summer employer. (One of those summers was spent in weekly meetings with a young attorney general named Walter Mondale. In person, he is very funny and relaxed, and I recall, not so fondly, a practical joke he played on me.)

In the early 1980s I, like many Americans, was reassessing politics. Someone wrote an editorial that the Democrats had become the party of lawyers, loudmouths, and malcontents. I agreed. I especially agreed about unions: The auto industry in America can lay the blame for all its ills on union selfishness, not energy politics. And as a parent, I am convinced teachers union leadership should be in prison cells. But those were the guys who ran the Democratic Party, along with professors just too warm and fuzzy with terrorists-turned-philosophers

Then came John McCain. I liked him, but I was not about to vote for a 72-year-old cancer survivor who plucked a total dimwit from obscurity to be his running mate. And thinking about it further, it was obvious that many in the Republican party were religious nuts who insist on telling us what to do with our personal plumbing and with whom we may share it. It is inexcusable that we seriously question the science of evolution and attempt to politicize it in our schools. But that's what the Republicans have wrought.

 

So last week, I did it: changed my registration from Republican to independent. Venting now complete, where am I going with this?

You have a new client. You must rebuild the image and brand of the Republican Party. You must identify its target audience, the message to that target, and develop the marketing communications tactics to reach that target.

The New York Times on Tuesday, May 5, carried an interesting critique by David Brooks, an early protege of William F. Buckley, entitled "The long voyage home."  Start there.

You will need to study the demographics and psychographics of various voting blocks. Don't make assumptions. In California, many Hispanics are damned conservative and solidly GOP.

Don't think this is marketing? I assure you a bunch of Republicans are spending long weekends at lodges and resorts going over data right down to the precinct level. What you have to say may provide a breakthrough idea.

And breakthrough ideas they need.

Roger

Roger S. Peterson heads his own marcomm consulting firm in Rocklin, California. He is an American Marketing Association Professional Certified Marketer (PCM), an educator, and co-author The Secret to Incentive Program Success: Incentive ROI that makes bean counters smile!, the AMA Handbook For Managing Business To Business Marketing Communications and The Magic Megaphone.

About Those Ad Taglines: Searching for B2B Winners

By Roger S. Peterson, Contributing Editor

I've always been fascinated by advertising taglines. Eleven or fewer words that just capture a product or service's essence and unique selling proposition.

The consumer ones are easy to remember.  I mention a few that are and always will be evocative:

• When it absolutely, positively has to get there overnight (Fed Ex)
• Where's the beef? (Wendy's)
• The taste of a new generation (Pepsi)
• Coke. It's the real thing.

But business-to-business, or B2B, taglines usually aren't as exciting. Some are listed here. The one that was a real winner was "Intel Inside," but that was primarily tied to a consumer product and thus got lots of play.

What business-to-business ad taglines do you believe have been very successful?  It could be a company many of us would not recognize, but in its world the tagline said it all. Tell us what the product or service is and its USP, too.

Roger

Roger S. Peterson heads his own marcomm consulting firm in Rocklin, California. He is an American Marketing Association Professional Certified Marketer (PCM), an educator, and co-author The Secret to Incentive Program Success: Incentive ROI that makes bean counters smile!, the AMA Handbook For Managing Business To Business Marketing Communications and The Magic Megaphone.

Non-Profit Marketing: A Rose By Any Other Name?

By Roger S. Peterson, Contributing Editor

The April 21 issue of The New York Times carried an article in its Education Life section entitled, "So you want to work for a non-profit?" The author, Cecilia Simon, featured an ex-Bear Stearns account executive who lost his job after the meltdown. He acquired a Master's in fundraising from NYU, a degree that I, nestled here in the Sierra Foothills where people still pan for gold, never heard of. So much for us naive Californians, right?

So I pondered, as I sat in my back yard drinking chilled yerba mate while my wife practiced yoga - we are soooo Californian, she, ex-Ohio, and I, ex-Minnesota - is do-good marketing the same as any other type of marketing? When you take profit out of the equation, does the skill set change? The dynamics? The incentives? Or is non-profit marketing just, well, marketing?

The NYU curriculum listed courses about the psychology of why people give to charities and related aspects of giving. That makes sense. But I see nothing about the principles of direct marketing, a technique long used by charities, as my evening phone calls and afternoon mail can well attest. 

So I open this up to you: What, if any, is the inherent difference? Is a charity just like any other client whose unique selling proposition must be isolated and whose strategy must be defined, and then tactical communications executed?

Do any of you know those who have made the switch and can blog on this post? I truly would like to learn.

Thanks,

Roger

Roger S. Peterson heads his own marcomm consulting firm in Rocklin, California. He is an American Marketing Association Professional Certified Marketer (PCM), an educator, and co-author The Secret to Incentive Program Success: Incentive ROI that makes bean counters smile!, the AMA Handbook For Managing Business To Business Marketing Communications and The Magic Megaphone.

Determining Value Statement And Strategy

By Roger S. Peterson, Contributing Editor

It's always surprised me how inarticulate companies can be about their product's added value: too much focus on features rather than benefits. Value is also called the unique selling proposition (USP), or big benefit. Doesn't matter what you call it, but it had better answer these questions:

1. How is your product different?
2. Who cares about that difference and why?
3. Is the USP addressing the decision maker and is the decision-maker the buyer? If not, who is?
4. Does the decision maker have the money to buy the product?

You would be surprised how many firms get that wrong. So herewith I offer a simple example to help determine a product's value-add.

Remember when Burger King came along? "We've got McDonald's...what do we need another burger chain for?" many asked. But BK parked outside McDonald's stores and observed problems. McDonald's offered consistency, all right; the burgers were the same everywhere. But cars full of kids really slowed down drive-through. Little Sally did not want onions. Billy didn't want tomato slices. Tears, messy cars, slow traffic. So Burger King decided its value-add was in flexible ingredients.

 

Now, walk your product through this algorithm. Make the appropriate replacements:

Burger King will offer more flexibility in the assembly of hamburgers. We at BK know this is important, especially for a car full of kids. So our strategy is to focus on the inflexibility of McDonald's perfect consistency, and to use tactics that draw those families to BK. The benefit for families: fewer tears, faster decision-making. The benefit for BK franchises: quicker drive-throughs, more volume. We'll market it as "Have it your way."

Amazon is a great example of added value. Starbucks did, for a while, but is now losing it, and competitors, like McDonald's, are pouncing on Starbucks, with mixed success.

Try this on your pending product. If you can't walk it through this simple process, it may be time to change the product, the audience...or the benefit.

Roger

Roger S. Peterson heads his own marcomm consulting firm in Rocklin, California. He is an American Marketing Association Professional Certified Marketer (PCM), an educator, and co-author The Secret to Incentive Program Success: Incentive ROI that makes bean counters smile!, the AMA Handbook For Managing Business To Business Marketing Communications and The Magic Megaphone.

Where Should Marketers Report Within Corporate Structures?

By Roger S. Peterson, Contributing Editor

In a recent blog, I talked about the differences between Venusian marketers and their Martian counterparts in sales. They have the same chromosome count - at least I think they do - but their perceptions are quite different.

By way of disclaimer, I've had three sales careers and spent decades in marketing. And I've complained about my counterparts in all of those roles.

I've seen all kinds of reporting structures. Industries differ.  So, let's make this a survey. Where should these departments report into: sales, customer service/support, marketing, product development.

Vote your option:

_____  Marketing should report to the VP/sales
_____  Marketing should report to the CFO
_____  Sales should report to the VP/marketing
_____  Customer service/support should report to the COO
_____  Product development should report to the VP/sales

These are loaded questions, and I purposely left out many combinations.

A VP/sales once said, "Marketing is a support function to sales." He later became CEO. He was also later fired on an airplane, his wife seated nearby, whom he brought along to the trade show in Australia because she had never been there. The new owner wasn't buying it.

Have you been there, done that? How would you set up these reporting lines?

Editor Jack Rochester and I were both in college textbook publishing in the '70s. It's an industry where liberal arts/English majors go when they suddenly discover they may have to find jobs in business. The company's management dismissed marketing. Marketing, to them, was only direct mail. The industry still dismisses marketing, defining it as imprinted giveaways (specialty advertising). And it's an industry that is collapsing due to used book wholesalers, Internet sales, and professors who still don't understand why a complexly illustrated 900-page chemistry textbook with a 5,000 copy print-run doesn't cost the same as a 400-page novel with no illustrations and a 25,000 copy print-run. Why is there such a poor perception and understanding about this simple economic fact? IMHO, ineffective customer education.

So how would you set up these reporting lines?

Roger S. Peterson

Roger S. Peterson heads his own marcomm consulting firm in Rocklin, California. He is an American Marketing Association Professional Certified Marketer (PCM), an educator, and co-author The Secret to Incentive Program Success: Incentive ROI that makes bean counters smile!, the AMA Handbook For Managing Business To Business Marketing Communications and The Magic Megaphone.