Looks Count

It’s shallow… but it’s the truth – your looks matter. You don’t only need to brand and dress-up your products and business, you need to also brand and dress-up yourself. From BusinessWeek Online’s Dress The Part Of A Leader:

1. Look better than everyone else – Dress to impress.
2. Get the right fit – Not too tall, short, tight, loose… but just right!
3. Flatter yourself – Does this make me look…?
4. Be well-heeled – Shoes.
5. Spend more for quality – “Good thing no cheap, cheap thing no good.”
6. Steer clear of distractions – Watch out for excessive bling.
7. Be culture-appropriate – Stick out… but not like a sore thumb.
8. Give your best shot – Your photos must be consistent with your overall image.

Where Have All Our Ideas Gone?

Infamous Hugh McLeod makes very poignant comments about the marketing communications industry in this post:

I totallly agree with Doc’s recent comment:

Whatever marketing becomes will start, I believe, as a technology trend.

Brilliant. [Doc's blog is here.]As I’m fond of saying, when people in the advertising business ask me where my disaffection with that industry comes from, I tell them to do the math:

The Cuetrain wasn’t written by a Leo Burnett employee.
Movable Type wasn’t invented by McCann’s.
RSS wasn’t invented by JWT.
Robert Scoble doesn’t work for Fallon.
Techmeme wasn’t invented by Saatchi’s.

Advertising people are supposed to be in “the idea business”. But none of the ideas that have excited me in the last 5 years or so have come from Madison Avenue. Not one. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

Why do you think that is?

More Marketing Genius From Seth – Intuition vs. Analysis

Dammit. I wish I could think and write like this.

From Seth’s Blog:

The intuition vs. analysis conundrum

Let’s say you’ve got a really good idea. And you’ve had good ideas before.

You show it to your colleagues. They analyze it. They tell you why it’s not a good idea.

Hmmm.

Do you go with your instinct? Is your gut reaction to be trusted? After all, you’ve been right before. After all, you’ve been wrong before.

The analysis, based on past events, certainly seems sound. But your instincts are the only way you’re going to do something unsound.

And unsound things become hits. Sound ones never do.

Who Moved My Cheese was unsound. So was publishing a book two years after you started blogging every chapter. So was an expensive, unfitted, almost untailored suit from Milan. So was running against Joe Lieberman.

The challenge is not to somehow persuade those in search of soundness to change their minds. The challenge is to do enough of a gut check to decide whether you should defend your instinct. And then do it.

 

Marketing Genius From Seth – Marketing Matters

Gawd. I can’t stand how clever he is, and how much I keep putting his thoughts here for my future reference! Gagh!

From Seth’s Blog:

Marketing matters

Yes, marketing works. The Saturday Journal writes about Michelle Nimmons, who runs the Denmark-Olar Teen Life Center in Denmark, SC. She and her staff (using nothing but marketing techniques like billboards, classroom sessions, free dinners and condom distribution) have cut the teen pregnancy rate by more than 60%. It’s now, by far, the lowest in the state, a fraction of the rate in the next county.

Most marketing problems aren’t intractable. They are solved with persistence, consistency and attention to detail. When marketing doesn’t work, it’s usually because the product is lousy. But the second reason is that the organization picks too big a marketplace in comparison to the resources they have available. I have no doubt that if Michelle tried to do her work in the entire state (with the same staff), she’d fail.

By overwhelming the market with her message, and by creating a platform for it to spread, she’s proven it can work.

7 Criteria For A Good Name

1. Distinctiveness. Does it stand out from the crowd, especially from other names in its class? Does it separate well from ordinary text and speech? The best brand names have the “presence” of a proper noun.
2. Brevity. Is it short enough to be easily recalled and used? Will it resist being reduced to a nickname? Long multi-word names will be quickly shortened to non-communicating initials.
3. Appropriateness. Is there a reasonable fit with the business purpose of the entity? If it would work just as well—or better— for another entity, keep looking.
4. Easy spelling and pronunciation. Will most people be able to spell the name after hearing it spoken? Will they be able to pronounce it after seeing it written? A name shouldn’t turn into a spelling test or make people feel ignorant.
5. Likability. Will people enjoy using it? Names that are intellectually stimulating, or provide a good “mouth feel,” have a headstart over those that don’t.
6. Extendibility. Does it have “legs”? Does it suggest a visual interpretation or lend itself to a number of creative executions? Great names provide endless opportunities for brandplay.
7. Protectability. Can it be trademarked? Is it available for web use? While many names can be trademarked, some names are more defensible than others, making them safer and more valuable in the long run.

From Martin Neumeier’s The Brand Gap

Military MySpace

This is an interesting use of new social media for one of the oldest organizations in any country’s history… its military.

From the :
Marine Corps looking for MySpace buddies
Mon Jul 24, 3:49 AM ET

KANEOHE, Hawaii – Teens looking to hook up with a friend on the popular Web community MySpace may bump into an unexpected buddy: the U.S. Marine Corps.

So far, over 12,000 Web surfers have signed on as friends of the Corps in response to the latest military recruiting tactic. Other military branches may follow.

MySpace.Com, the Internet’s most popular social networking site with over 94 million registered users, has helped redefine the way a generation communicates. Users, many in their teens and 20s, post personal profiles and accumulate lists of friends and contacts with common interests.

The Marine Corps MySpace profile — featuring streaming video of barking drill sergeants, fresh recruits enduring boot camp and Marines storming beaches — underscores the growing importance of the Internet to advertisers as a medium for reaching America’s youth.

“That’s definitely the new wave,” said Gunnery Sgt. Brian Lancioni at a Hawaii recruiting event. “Everything’s technical with these kids, and the Internet is a great way to show what the Marine Corps has to offer.”

Patrick Baldwin, an 18-year-old recruit from Saratoga, N.Y., who linked his profile to the Marines’ site after hearing about it from a friend, said MySpace was a good place for interested teens to start learning more about the Marines.

“The more information you have the better off you are,” said Baldwin, who left for boot camp a few weeks ago.

The Army, which originally balked at advertising on MySpace because of well-publicized incidents of child predators using the site to meet kids, plans to soon set up its own profile page.

“It is where prospects are,” said Louise Eaton, media and Web chief for the U.S. Army Accession Command. “We go to where they are to try to inform them of the opportunities we offer.”

Recruiters say MySpace is good for advertising, but they would never sign someone up to join the Marines unless they’ve met him or her in an old-fashioned, face-to-face meeting.

Web surfers who open the Marines’ MySpace page can click on a tab titled “Contact a Recruiter.” This directs them to the Marines.com site where they are prompted to fill out a form with their name, address and phone number so recruiters can arrange to meet them.

So far over 430 people have asked to contact a Marine recruiter through the site in the five months since the page went up, including some 170 who are considered “leads” or prospective Marine recruits.

The Marine Corps isn’t the first to use MySpace profiles to reach the Web community’s core audience of teenagers and twentysomethings.

Toyota Motor Corp. has a page to promote the Yaris, its new subcompact car. Verizon Wireless sponsored a contest on MySpace for the best single by an unsigned band.

MySpace has rapidly become the online social forum of choice for many who like how easy it is to make and communicate with friends via the site. But MySpace — and News Corp., its parent company — have had problems.

In Maine, a 27-year-old man was sentenced to three years in prison for sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl he met on the site.

To boost the site’s safety, MySpace recently imposed restrictions on how adults may contact younger users. Those who are 18 and over can no longer request to be on a 14- or 15-year-old’s list of friends unless they already know either the youth’s e-mail address or full name.

The Army initially posted ads on MySpace in January but withdrew them a month later when reports emerged about child predators approaching youths via the site. MySpace has since assured the Army it has better security protections in place.

As for other branches, the Air Force places regular advertisements on MySpace, but doesn’t have a profile. The Navy hasn’t used MySpace.

Steve Morse with the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors is critical of recruiters using MySpace profiles. But Morse said they don’t surprise him because the

Iraq war has forced the military to search “under every bush” for recruits.

“It’s kind of obnoxious of them to be using something that’s sort of like a youth domain, to kind of come in and really sucker youth into something they’re not really explaining fully,” Morse said.

___

On the Net:

Marines on MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/themarinecorps

Expert vs. Entrepreneur

Today, I just learned the difference between an expert and an entrepreneur – especially when it comes to “owning” a business.

An expert strives to know all there is to know about a particular subject, and how to best apply his knowledge.

An entrepreneur strives to make money – wherever he is able to. Often, you will find him having a Long Tail-type approach to business.

If you want to concentrate on building your brand, then be an expert. Otherwise, if you want to concentrate on building your net value, then be an entrepreneur.

Ideally, you should be both. (That’s where finding niches come in)

3 Marketing Potholes

From marketing über guru, Seth Godin:

 

Marketing pothole (#1 of 3): I’ll know it when I see it

Here is the first of three common pitfalls that wreck your marketing efforts:

Lots of marketers (and most of their bosses) like to say, “I’ll know it when I see it.”

That’s why they want to see three or five or twenty executions of an ad. Or ten or fifteen mockups of a car or a facade. That’s why marketers put their staff and their freelancers and their agencies through an infinite loop of versioning.

“I’ll know it when I see it.”

Actually, you won’t.

You didn’t know it when you saw the first iPod or the first iteration of Google. You didn’t know it when first exposed to email or JetBlue or the Macarena or Britney Spears. No, in fact, you hardly ever “know it.” If you did, you’d be a lot smarter than the rest of us, and we’d all be eagerly watching for your next product.

What is true is that we often know success when it smashes us in the face. We didn’t “know it” when Google went public at $85 a share (did you buy shares with your house as collateral?) but we sure knew it when it hit $300.

Perhaps Clive Davis knows a hit song when he hears one, and certainly Giorgio Armani has the magic eye. But, just speaking for myself, I don’t have Clive’s ears or Giorgio’s eyes.

Marketing campaigns are frequently crippled by managers who are sure that they know “it” when they see it–and this isn’t it. Some of my favorite stories are the ones about all the naysayers who tried to kill the stuff that ends up being great.  They just didn’t know what it was.

Marketing pothole (#2 of 3): I’m too busy

I can count on one hand the number of marketers I know who get to do “Marketing” every day. (with a capital M).

Accountants do accounting all the time. Salespeople spent a lot of time selling. But marketers, it seems, have a long list of things they do (budgets, coupons, projections, photo shoots, bizdev meetings, meet and greets, etc.) that is technically marketing–cause I think everything an organization does is marketing–but is hardly in the sweet spot.

Think about the giant marketing successes of our time. From Disney to CAA to Boston Consulting Group… from Ronald Reagan to the Mormon Church to Habitat for Humanity… in every case, these organizations won big time because of a kernel of an idea, a marketing insight that they built upon.

There are more than 50,000 restaurants in New York City. Perhaps 200 of them are marketing success stories. Yet at the other 49,800 restaurants, the owners spend very little time working on their breakout idea, and tons of time doing stuff that feels a lot more important.

Once an organization is up and running, it’s almost impossible to carve out the time to find the marketing vision that will make all the difference. Are you too busy working to make any money?

Marketing pothole (#3 of 3): What will the boss think

This is the biggest one, and the reason for the whole series.

I now believe that almost all marketing decisions are first and foremost made without the marketplace in mind.

That’s a pretty bold statement, but here goes.

I think that most marketers, most of the time, make their marketing decisions based on what they think the committee, or their boss, or their family or their friends or the blog readers with email will say.

When I speak to groups, the folks who are stuck, or who are not finding the growth they are hoping for, rarely say, “we don’t know how to get the market to respond.” Instead, they say, “my boss or the factory or the committee or the design folks or the CFO won’t…”

Now, of course most of this is whining. Most of this is nonsense. It’s not everyone else’s fault. But that’s not my point. My point is that if you market intending to please those people, you only have yourself to blame.

Great marketing pleases everyone on the team, sooner or later. But at the beginning, great marketing pleases almost no one. At the beginning, great marketing is counter-intuitive, non-obvious, challenging and apparently risky. Of course your friends, shareholders, stakeholders and bosses won’t like it. But they’re not doing the marketing, you are.