Ignoring the sage advice to never talk about
politics or religion, you’ll be reading about the former here in
Buzz sometimes during the 2008 Presidential Campaign. I simply
can’t resist, because politics provides fascinating case studies in
marketing – ones that can be applied to any product. My intention
(even if I fail) will always be to make marketing observations, not
political ones. If you detect any personal leanings, I apologize in
advance. As always, feel free to
call me out on that or any other
issue in Buzz that provokes you.
Case in point: Whether or not you’d ever support
Illinois
Senator Barack Obama, you have to admit that his candidacy
represents a fascinating marketing brand. How many other product
launches have benefited from some of these same characteristics?
New Product Halo –
Senator
Obama’s lack of a track record on the national stage means he
has no "baggage." For voters seeking someone new and different,
he hasn’t yet shown some of
negative tendencies of most
politicians. Pundits calculate that this may have factored in
his decision to run for President now rather than wait until
later in his career.
Any product is only new
once. That time represents a tremendous window of
opportunity, when optimists believe you’re capable of
everything good. Use your new product halo. You will
eventually lose it.
All Things to All People –
"People see in [Obama] what they want to see," says
Cassandra
Butts in Rolling Stone. Opposing candidates will try to
force him to take positions on difficult issues, knowing that
each will displease nearly as many people as it pleases.
Marketers sometimes
over-define a product. By the time consumers learn about
details, those specific features may not matter. Create
the emotional bond first.
Optimism –
On ABC’s This
Week, Cokie Roberts observed that what really separates
Obama from the other candidates is "that smile" and his
optimistic stump speech. Actor
George Clooney is among those who
say Obama reminds him of John or Bobby Kennedy, eulogized for
having said, ""Some men see things as they are and say why. I
dream things that never were and say why not."
Rather than reposition the
competition as negative, paint a positive picture of
what life could be like instead. That’s charisma.
A Story Line –
When Obama
was running for the U.S. Senate, a 70 year-old woman at a focus
group listened intently to his life story for the first time.
She clasped her hand to her chest and exclaimed, "Be still my
heart!" As pollster
Paul Harstad tells Rolling Stone,
"I’ve been doing this for a quarter century and I’ve never seen
that."
Who doesn’t enjoy a great
story? Who doesn’t remember a great story? Who
doesn’t tell someone else a great story? Every
brand has a story. Tell it.
Humility –
During his
announcement speech, Obama admitted "a certain audacity" to his
Presidential campaign. That line was widely quoted because
humility is so unusual in a politician. Could you imagine
John
Kerry saying such a thing?
As marketing authors Ries
and Trout point out, admitting a weakness causes
customers to grant you a strength. The classic
advertising example was Avis’ admission that they were
#2 "but trying harder."
The Underdog Effect –
Former Arkansas Governor
Mike Huckabee, a Republican
presidential candidate, says that fellow Arkansan Bill Clinton –
someone with whom Huckabee has mostly disagreed – is,
nevertheless, "an affirmation of the American dream. Don’t ever
take that away from a kid growing up in this country." Just as
Clinton reminded impoverished Americans of his
humble
beginnings, Barack Obama’s candidacy gives hope to many
Americans to overcome steep odds every day.
It’s fun to support an
underdog, especially if you are one yourself. And who
doesn’t think of himself as an underdog?
Lights! Camera! Resume!
In the past, updating your resume has meant spending
an hour or two on the computer. Soon, you may need your camcorder,
too. Jobster and
Facebook are teaming up to launch a career website
featuring video resumes this Spring. Jobster CEO Jason Goldberg
tells TIME magazine, "I can see a day when video as part of
the resume is the norm." Vault.com recently held a
video resume
contest, offering an investment-banking job as first prize. Other
sites hoping to catch on include 62ndview,
HireVue and
http://www.Resumevideo.com.
If you’re looking for a good video resume template, you may find one
among the 1,590 resumes already posted on YouTube.
Get your tickets for CNN-fest!
The Cable News Network has discovered non-spot
revenue. Enter the new
CNN Events division, which answers to the ad
sales department. L’Oreal Paris sponsored the
CNN Inspire Summit in
October, a salute to women where anchor Paula Zahn gave the opening
address. UPS sponsored CNN’s second live event in November, a forum
for "out of the box" business ideas.
"The game has changed."
So says
Philip de Vellis, and truer words were never
spoken about the nature of politics or media. De Vellis is the
renegade creator of an online ad for Barack Obama that depicted
Hillary Clinton as an Orwellian "Big Brother." Over 5,000,000 people
have viewed it on YouTube.com alone, and millions more saw coverage
on TV newscasts. No ad budget? No problem. De Vellis created the ad
on his home computer and didn’t spend a penny buying airtime.
Buzz book: Payback by James P. Andrew, Harold
L. Sirkin
The admonishment is repeated often these days:
"Innovate or die." But what managers fear most is that they’ll do
both. This book provides several templates for developing new profit
centers, so that you can predict return on investment with some
reliability, during every step of the process. Indirectly – and
perhaps more importantly – it provides ways to convince senior
management that you’ve anticipated the costs and obstacles. For
example, the authors explain how to design a "cash curve," a chart
in which the horizontal axis measures the time it takes for the
innovation to either succeed or fail. The vertical axis measures the
financial payback or loss. Along each step of the way, you use the
cash curve to assess progress – and to
pull the plug on a bad idea
earlier rather than later.
Why Vanguard loves Google Ads
According to
Businessweek magazine, Vanguard’s November
Google Adwords campaign cost them
less than 50-cents per click-through – with an astonishing 14% of
Internet users who saw the ad clicking through. Compare that to an
average 2% response rate to direct mail advertising. TNS Media
Intelligence reports that Vanguard upped its online ad spending
again last year to $12 million, while reducing expenditures in every
other medium.
Buzz store: Amoeba Music
Next time you’re in Los Angeles or San Francisco,
pack a lunch, and visit one of the world’s greatest entertainment
mega-stores. While Tower Records and other retailers are closing
their doors, Amoeba’s sales are up, now over $60 million a year. As
co-founder Marc Weinstein explains, "We are not bound by industry
standards or norms." Or put another way, Weinstein understands the
principle of The Long Tail. Other music businesses still
chase the hits, while Amoeba lets you love the misses. Looking for
your favorite out-of-print vinyl LP? Amoeba may have a fresh copy
among its stock of 2.5 million titles. Plus Hungarian or Pakistani
folk music, jazz, folk, soul, classical, trance, ska, house, dance
mixes, you name it. Amoeba knows that the future of entertainment is
in catering to everyone’s unique individual interests. No trips to
the West Coast soon? No problem. Watch for Amoeba’s new website
later this year.
The most important number in your Tech Poll III
results
If your radio station participated in
Jacobs Media’s
Tech Poll III, hidden within the wealth of data about how many of
your listeners own iPods, text hourly, watch TV all day – you name
it – there’s one number that
Peter McCabe would care about most.
He’s the Chief Quality Officer for General Electric’s healthcare
business who, in the fall of 2004, read an article in Harvard
Business Reviewthat changed his career. The article
demonstrated that "Net Promoter Scores," which measure the
difference between your promoters and your detractors can be a
fascinating gauge of brand health. McCabe started tracking Net
Promoter Scores and showed a striking correlation between sales
growth and NPS growth. So much so that McCabe’s bonuses – and those
of hundreds of other executives – now depend on it.
If you haven’t calculated yours yet, here’s how:
Refer to Question #63 in your local Jacobs Tech Poll III
data.
Add the percentage of 9’s and 10’s (your "raving fans").
Add the percentage of 0’s through 6’s.
Subtract the sum in Step 3 from the sum in Step 2.
That’s your Net Promoter Score.
Don’t worry that you’re not using the percentage of
people who scored your brand a 7 or 8 in the formula above. They’re
considered "passively satisfied," and not passionate enough to tell
people about you.
So now what? Start tracking it over time – among
both listeners and advertisers. Read the definitive book by NPS’
creator (The Ultimate Questionby Fred Reichheld) or check
out websites and blogs devoted to pursuit of a higher NPS. Although
comparisons across regions and product categories are dangerous, we
would all be proud of an NPS like Harley Davidson reportedly has
(81) or even in the 50 to 80 range like companies such as Costco,
FedEx, Amazon, eBay and Vanguard. Sure would beat getting an average
NPS, said to be in the single digits. Or just imagine the NPS of
some cell phone companies, where negative word-of-mouth is so
common.
"You are actively discovering the world… and so are
we." -- NPR’s press release explaining the vision for "Zack," a new
initiative aimed at younger adults
"This wasn’t Candid Camera. There were two
large cameras in the room. I don’t buy the argument that, ‘Oh, I
wouldn’t have acted so racist or anti-Semitic if I’d known…"
-- Sacha Baron Cohen (alias "Borat")
"Our rates of return on invested capital have been
much better internationally than they've been in domestic radio the
last few years, and I see us continuing to pursue opportunities
there."
-- Jeff Smulyan, Emmis Communications
"I’d rather eat my own testicles."
-- Morrissey’s reply to a $5 million offer to reunite The Smiths at
Coachella
"You can’t even hang out next to someone without
people saying you’re sleeping with them. In the world of camera
phones and bloggers, becoming a parody of yourself is inescapable."
-- Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy on stardom
"Lay low and return lucid, and gorgeous, with a
cutting-edge pop smash single."
-- Epic Records exec Keith Naftaly’s advice for Britney Spears
"I hope that those who have financially benefited
from [Britney] can put aside their mercenary self-interest and take
care of her as a person."
-- Moby
"It’s easy to take a shot at people…and say, ‘Hey,
look how stupid everybody is,’ but Will [Ferrell] doesn’t. He’s not
elitist in any way… The egg always ends up on his own face."
-- Blades of Glory co-star Will Arnett
"It is within my ability to change for the better. I
want you to know that is exactly what I am doing."
-- Eddie Van Halen, explaining his choice of being in rehab instead
of attending his Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame induction
"[The leg] must fall off, not be purposely taken
off."
-- Betting site Bodog.com’s rules for wagers on whether Heather
McCartney’s prosthetic leg will detach during Dancing With The Stars
"But then you have Paris Hilton or the Pussycat
Dolls taking their clothes off and gyrating up against womanizing,
a-hole men, and that’s acceptable."
-- Singer Lily Allen, about MTV not playing a video that contained
the F-word
"To err is human, to air guitar divine."
-- from documentary movie Air Guitar Nation
"I am probably going to host more Webinars in the
future, because this was painless."
-- Dr. Laura Schlessinger, after she conducted an online "meeting"
with 921 fans as attendees
If your radio station participated in
