July 2008

Word of Mouth (WOM) marketing is certainly not a new sensation; in fact it’s not even a hot buzzword anymore.  The reality is that much of what began under the banner of WOM is now being spoken of in the lexicon of social media.  Blogs, Wikis, User Generated Content (UGC) and the whole social media world are really built upon many of the principles started years ago with WOM. 

No matter what you call it, there’s now an environment capable of propagating the reality of your products quality and comparative value into the marketplace at blinding speed.  All these channels of communication and exchange make information available to a larger group of people at a faster rate than at any time in history.   

Even in this world of radical transparency and information exchange, I continue to be amazed at how much energy goes into messaging and marketing that attempts to gloss over product deficiencies rather than directing more focus and resources on fixing the underlying issues.  Often the result is marketing that dooms a product to fall short of expectations and to subsequently be raked over the coals of public opinion.   This kind of thinking completely misses the opportunity to tap the exponential power of social medial and WOM and fuels those folks who love to expose faulty products and the companies who make them.

Addressing core product issues isn’t always possible for a variety of reasons.  Lack of funding, short timelines to get a product to market or a host of other factors create the need for compromises.   No product, even fantastic ones, will likely go to market without their creators secretly wishing they could have slipped in a couple extra cool features.  

In the end, it comes down to the truth of your product.  Despite great marketing, huge media buys and all the other traditional marketing trimmings, a less-than product is destined for a very short half-life these days.  In contrast, high-quality offerings taken to market with savvy use of social media/WOM channels are likely to enjoy a longer run and do so with smaller marketing budgets. 

Next time you’re planning a go-to-market strategy, don’t underestimate the marketing value of a great product.  Waiting for, or pushing for, that next feature could be the best marketing decision you’ve ever made.    
 

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Very exciting news – AMC’s Mad Men starts up again this Sunday.  For my money the best show since the Sopranos.  For those who have not seen the show, it is a look at a New York ad agency in the early 60’s.  A fascinating portrayal of the men and women of that era juxtaposed against the advertising, media and marketing business.  The choice to set the show in the transitional early 60’s was savvy because it allows the show to explore the changing roles of men and women right before Vietnam and the civil rights and women’s rights movements.

It is a guilty pleasure watching the behavior of these guys in the office – smoking, drinking and womanizing is standard procedure.  And, so were sexism, harassment, racism and anti-Semitism - all out in the open.  It is jaw dropping to watch behavior that was then commonplace vs. today’s super sensitive politically correct workplace.

If you are in the marketing/media business you have to watch the advertising aspect of the show.  I get a charge out of watching them meet with clients, come up with ideas and pitch creative.  It was the heyday of traditional interruption based marketing.  They came up with a campaign and then bought tons of media in print, on billboards, or on television/radio.  That were all the options available, and there is nary a word about ROI, custom content or interactivity.  It was one-way communication from companies to the masses.  The ad agencies and media companies had a nice thing going, and they got rich fat and happy running ads.  They really never had to prove the ads worked as long as the drinks were flowing at lunch.

The “hero” is agency Creative Director Don Draper who is my favorite fictional character since the man with whom he shares many traits – Tony Soprano.  Don is morally ambiguous and lives by his own code of honor.  He is very ambitious and masterful with clients when pitching ideas.  Like Tony, he leads a complicated life juggling his family, extra-marital activities and his bosses and staff at the agency. An interesting aspect of the show is how the women in Don’s life represent the different and changing roles for women in the early 60’s. 

Keep an eye on how Don and his team come up with campaign ideas for their clients.  While we can make fun of the primitive tools they had to get the message out to their prospects, Don has incredible insight into how to craft a message.  He understands that great advertising is all about tapping into the mindset of the customer.  He strives to come up with concepts for the “emotional sell”.  A valuable lesson for today’s marketers to remember – good advertising and marketing is all about the customer, their needs and how they feel about themselves.  Sometimes because we have so many tools and technologies at our disposal we forget the basic fundamentals.  How many bad ad campaigns have we seen from marketers who just want to tap into the flavor of the week?  Putting the wrong message on a cool site; or just adding social networking to the mix does not make for good advertising.

Many people think advertising is about convincing or persuading someone to buy a product.  It is actually about making them realize they have an unmet need (physical or emotional) that can be filled with your product or service.  The customers who lined up for days to get the new iPhone were not “brainwashed” by Apple’s advertising; or even wowed by the technology.  They were searching to fill an emotional need to be the “first to have something” which validates their personality (yes, I was a psych major).  Apple does a brilliant job of leveraging that emotion.

On that note, my favorite scene is when Don is out with a group of bohemian type beatniks at a poetry reading.  One of beatniks starts in on him for “making people buy things they don’t want or need”, and then condescendingly asks Don “how he sleeps at night”.  Don coolly picks up his glass of scotch, smiles and replies “on a bed of money”.
 

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Of all the things that fascinate me about the web there is a special place in my heart for Wikipedia.  I am a trivia nut, so I love trolling the listings, and I get a kick out of the earnestness of the people who contribute and patrol the site (more about that later).  It is now standard practice for marketers to create a Wikipedia page for their company.  And, it has become an art form to put up a page that does not veer too much in a sales pitch to prevent being smote down by the Wikipedia gods.  I have heard from many of my marketing peers who have done battle with the self appointed defenders of truth.

Because Wikipedia is very well indexed by Google having a company page helps your SEO efforts. When you Google King Fish Media, our Wiki page comes up in the third listing after our site URL and the Think Tank blog - and it is driven over 100 visitors to our site.  If you have not ventured into these waters as a marketer, you must try it.  These types of sites are quickly replacing more traditional sorts of reference materials. 

There have been a lot of debates to the validity of the information presented, and you do need to take the facts and information presented with a grain of salt.  The dispersed and anonymous nature of the policing opens the door for people with an agenda to set the tone. 

I am fascinated by those who have taken on the duty to police the site for factual accuracy.  What is their motivation?  What drives them to do what they do?  It’s not money since they are volunteers.  Valid questions as we move into the age of user generated content – or UGC as the cool marketers are calling it.  Over on Channel V Media’s blog they wrote about a game called wikiracing where participants add information to obscure pages and see how fast they are corrected or edited.

In the name of science I inserted myself as notable resident of my hometown of Beverly, Massachusetts – as an author. I write this blog and have had a bunch of marketing articles published so I thought author was my best bet.  And, my new found fame would give my mom something to talk about at the Boynton Beach JCC.  It seemed easy enough since the current list of 26 people is pretty weak expect for some 300 year old historical figures and a few modern exceptions – Kevin O’Connor who hosts This Old House on PBS, alternative rocker Mary Lou Lord (check her out on iTunes if you don’t know her, she is great) and world famous author John Updike.  The rest were a collection of people no one has heard of unless you were related to them. 

I put myself in there alphabetically between actor Howard Petrie and television sports commentator Derek Rae - under the radar flanked by a B movie actor who has been dead for 40 years and a Scottish soccer commentator.  My fame lasted exactly 27 hours before being struck down by a wiki police person with the user name of Adj.  Adj is a serial editor who seems to specialize in trivial information about Massachusetts towns – talk about a niche.  I was of one of 13 edits Adj made that day, and one of over 500 since April.  You can visualize Adj at a desk in a cramped basement home office surrounded by reference books, cats and stacks of old newspapers - sipping a cup of tea and staring at the screen over drug store reading glasses while stamping out informational miscreants such as myself.  There must be immeasurable pleasure and satisfaction in telling the world that I am a seemingly nonnotable resident of Beverly.  However, I would wager that more people read this blog in 2008 than watched the collective works of Howard Petrie, but I’ll let it go.

Maybe the information on Wikipedia is good and can be trusted if there is any validity to the wisdom of crowds.  I am not totally sure what to make of it as a marketing tool other than you better not cross the line or the Adjs of cyberspace will be there to put you in your place – the digital dustbin of history.

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