Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category

Monday, October 8th, 2012

People Still Vote

Is it just me?

Am I getting jaded? Fed up? Bored?

And no, it’s not life that’s getting to me – that’s just fine, thank you – LOL!!!!

It’s the elections in the United States (sorry for being partisan) that I find tiring. But truthfully, as one who loves to follow these things globally, I sense the same in most democratic countries (not to mention the comic book proceedings in the non).

To be clear, it’s not the democratic process that I find exhausting – on the contrary, the democracy part – when and where it works – is still the best there is.

What I find draining is what we have made of it – and worse, what we have allowed our candidates to become. And maybe worst of all is how we have pretended that the digital age has changed it all – and we use democracy as the cover.

I think what brought this all to a head was the recent first debate between the two US presidential candidates.

Did you watch it? Read about it? See key snippets on YouTube or elsewhere?

For all the lead-up hype, for all the commentary and tweeting (most ever to date for a political event – but what isn’t the most ever to date…on Twitter?), for all the punditry and deep analysis – it seems to me to boil down to who was less bad in delivery and who had listened more to their media trainers.

In the US, we seem to feel there was a clear winner – and maybe by the rules of that particular engagement there was – but the way I see it, the winning was around style and not around substance – sort of like the Winter Olympics skating competition where the technical and freestyle are two different events.

And I’m hard-pressed to see what the digital effect was – particularly when the last US election was touted as having been decided by the brilliant use of digital channels by the Obama campaign (and there was some really clever usage for fund-raising and communication – some of which won Titanium at the Cannes Creative Festival). But today that same campaign machine is pouring tens of millions of dollars and more into – shudder – TV (whatever that means) and there is little talk of any millennial or other buzzword power giving anyone a winning edge.

Here is my take – the digital exponential force is always at work today – it’s a given – meaning that whatever we do gets digital power or amplification because it’s what we do. The problem is that somehow we have imbued digital magic – like shamanism – into the process and somehow think that a candidate will emerge from the mire like some great FX fantasy movie.

To me it seems that once again we confuse real life with digital – we mix up what is with what we hype – we lose the true magic because we make it mundane.

Bottom line – may the best candidate win, anywhere in the world – and may they all understand that at the end of the day it’s not the Twitter feed that ultimately decides – it’s the quality – because at the end of the day if the product isn’t good the digital exponential will take it down even faster than it brought it up.

And to continue my beginning cynicism I share the following…listen:

“If God had wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates.” Jay Leno

So there you have it – I only point out that we fly because we made great wings – so we can vote – we just have to make great candidates.

What do you think?

Posted by David on 10/08 at 06:02 PM
  • as do I!!!!!!
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    Posted by David Sable on 2012-10-11 09:25:54
  • Alexis de Tocqueville's famous quote, "In a democracy, people get the government they deserve," is both true and a sad commentary on the process in the U.S. The fact that people will make judgements based on stage presence or the fact that one candidate or another has the best "zingers" in a face-to-face encounter on TV does not bode well ...
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    Posted by Richard Tooker on 2012-10-09 18:01:57
  • While the TV spend is outrageous, it is limited in geographic area. Living in NY the only time I see any presidential commercials are when I am watching regional stations for sporting events. Most of the TV ad dollars are being spent in a handful of markets. Yet the ads do go digital. They are all posted on YouTube, and ...
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    Posted by Peter NYC on 2012-10-08 18:48:52
Monday, October 1st, 2012

Castles in the Cloud

Have you been lost more than usual the past week or so?

Have you turned right when you should have gone left; found yourself on the wrong side of the road or in general wondered where the hell you were?

If so, chances are you have the new Apple iPhone 5 and have used its iO6 launched Maps app originally described as “the most powerful mapping service ever.”

Read the letter that follows from Tim Cook – Apple’s CEO – and you will understand why you found yourself at the local garbage landfill and not at the new restaurant you had waited weeks to get reservations for:

To our customers,

At Apple, we strive to make world-class products that deliver the best experience possible to our customers. With the launch of our new Maps last week, we fell short on this commitment. We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers and we are doing everything we can to make Maps better.

We launched Maps initially with the first version of iOS. As time progressed, we wanted to provide our customers with even better Maps including features such as turn-by-turn directions, voice integration, Flyover and vector-based maps. In order to do this, we had to create a new version of Maps from the ground up.

There are already more than 100 million iOS devices using the new Apple Maps, with more and more joining us every day. In just over a week, iOS users with the new Maps have already searched for nearly half a billion locations. The more our customers use our Maps the better it will get and we greatly appreciate all of the feedback we have received from you.

While we’re improving Maps, you can try alternatives by downloading map apps from the App Store like Bing, MapQuest and Waze, or use Google or Nokia maps by going to their websites and creating an icon on your home screen to their web app.

Everything we do at Apple is aimed at making our products the best in the world. We know that you expect that from us, and we will keep working non-stop until Maps lives up to the same incredibly high standard.

Tim Cook
Apple’s CEO

And follow this link to see why I said “originally described as ‘the most powerful mapping service ever’”:

Bottom line, you have to give Apple enormous credit for quickly owning up to their massive mistake and even more credit for connecting all the dots – including the product description – while at the same time providing what I think is ballsy customer service (ballsy to some – to me this should be standard – give up the pawn to own the king) by sending you to competitors who actually have great mapping apps.

But here is the thing – Apple gets it – RIGHT? Of course they reacted as they did, or why else would they be the most valuable company on the face of the earth?

To me that is not the question – nor is their exemplary reaction the only lesson to take from this debacle – although many should – business, politics, personal – be quick and honest!!!!

To me the real question is around the world of beta and the unadulterated hype that we live in.

You see, we have become so used to decimal-notated releases that we blindly accept whatever we are told and put up with inferior products and services that we would never accept in our off-line real world.

Imagine buying clothing and having the sleeves fall off or the zippers not work; or going to a new restaurant and getting food poisoning; or getting on a plane and having the engines not work….

And yes – by the way – all of those things do happen – but our reactions are different and our immediate feedback as a means of input into the next version is usually harsher, with way greater consequences.

The graveyards of poorly executed and produced products, bad tasting foods, out-of-control fashion and harmful services are chock full of the things we as consumers/users/buyers have sent to perdition.

Apple is lucky – at the end of the day this was only an app – and it seems that the majority of product reviews are positive – I have one and its form factor alone is a step up – although the charger…come on guys!!!!! Oh well….

But the notion that anything they do – or anything any of the tech community does in the “cloud” – is a step up for humanity is nonsense.

So here is a lesson from two centuries ago – it is almost as if Thoreau had prescient vision into our world…listen:

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” – Henry David Thoreau

So Apple – and all – even today – even in our beta accepting world – we still need the foundations and my bet is we always will….

What do you think?

Posted by David on 10/01 at 03:34 PM
  • Apple had sound business reasons to rush the new phone (and accompanying app) into market, though certainly made a huge mistake in over- rather than under-selling it. They didn't need to hype their map to sell millions of iPhone 5's; they should've positioned the map as the beginning of a (free) new product that would improve quickly over time. This ...
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    Posted by Andrew Jeske on 2012-10-01 16:40:55
Monday, September 10th, 2012

What’s More Important To Your Business?

What’s more important to your business…?

Deep behavioral analytics of your customer’s every engagement with you that are then fed with all your appropriate Brand messaging linked to your ROI and internal processes…

Or

Employees, who in their own day-to-day behavior, act in compassionate, kind and caring ways towards your customers – ignoring, perhaps, the very analytics, ROI and process that you think define your Brand.

Bill Taylor asked that same question in a post on the Harvard Business Review Blog Network where he posits that “It’s More Important to Be Kind than Clever.”

This is a must read for all, as its message resonates way beyond business; way beyond technology and analytics; way beyond ROI; and way, way beyond how many look at Branding. In fact, I believe the insight is core to our very existence as humans and it’s a message that gets lost in our frenetic, frantic belief that somehow digital social connectivity has changed the DNA of our deepest personal interactions.

Taylor shares a beautiful and simple story of a manager at a Panera Restaurant whose seemingly small act of compassion towards a very sick woman delivered a swell of Facebook responses and the usual following swell of “expert” commentary on the power of social media and “virtual word of mouth” to boost a company’s reputation.

No doubt this little mini-case will be used by some to justify marketing spending and others to “prove” Brand power.

Taylor takes a counterview and suggests that there is “the hunger among customers, employees, and all of us to engage with companies on more than just dollars-and-cents terms. In a world that is being reshaped by the relentless advance of technology, what stands out are acts of compassion and connection that remind us what it means to be human.”

I will go a step further – I can make the company/brand liking itself to more than a commerce case and go back years and years to prove that point – ever see the movie Miracle on 34th Street? Macy’s, a US-based retailer, latched onto the compassionate and turned themselves into the Brand that represents the “true spirit” of Christmas and some 150 years later is still successful, with a new movie and a parade that is still viewed around the world.

However – the point here is well beyond brand. Of course you can make the case that the Brand encourages that kind of behavior from its employees – that its website is all about caring and little acts of the same. And that its marketing efforts are boosted by that behavior.

But it is the employee that makes the difference – not the Brand. And I believe we are all craving human acts that seem somehow revolutionary in their execution – think Hunger Games (“They needed someone to set the whole thing in motion.  They needed you.”) – that help us remember who and what we are. People – not postings in some social network.

It amazes me that so many still don’t get it. Social media and “virtual word of mouth” (as opposed to real word of mouth…come on!) exist, as I have written before, because we are human; because our DNA demands it; because it is what makes us the species we are.

Technology is an amplifier and an efficiency mechanism. And Brands are stories we tell and share – the best last; the rest fade into oblivion.

Panera was lucky – you cannot program compassion; you cannot create business rules for sympathetic response; you cannot make kindness a corporate program driven by ROI. You either encourage the right behavior or you don’t, and you hope that you have hired the types of people who don’t just represent your Brand – they represent the best there is in all of us.

Imagine what a better world this would be if the behavior of one wonderful person in a small store somewhere was viewed as SOP (standard operating procedure) for the human race instead of a major marketing coup – and personally I find that it wasn’t to be a sad commentary on who and what we have become.

Two quotes to end today…listen:

“One’s life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion.” Simone de Beauvoir

Read as: nothing has value unless we attribute value to the life of others….

And the second…:

“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.” Dalai Lama

Read as: not even brands can survive….

The message?

Seems to me it’s pretty simple – value is driven by human passion – not by Digital contact….

So I thank Bill Taylor for writing this piece and I thank my dear friend and teacher Sam K. for having called it to my attention.

What do you think?

Posted by David on 09/10 at 08:50 PM