Category Archives: Branding

The Race and The Chase

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Do you remember chasing anything as a kid?

… chasing friends while playing tag.
… chasing your pet dog as he was running away with the chew toy.
… chasing your dad around the house, eventually falling in a heap on the couch and ending in a tickle fight.

At some point, many of us grow out of chasing and sign up for the (rat)race instead. We…

… race to a job before others can beat us to it.
… race against our peers to get the better car, bigger house and “perfect family.”
… race against time to try and find significance before it passes us by.

Simply running a race lacks passion. What can you do to rediscover yours? Maybe you just forgot what you were chasing. Maybe you need to know your red rubber ball. “Discover your passion and chase it for a lifetime.” As Kevin Carroll says.

Before you can do that though, ask yourself the question. “Am I just running? Or am I chasing something?”

That’s a good (even if it’s scary) place to start.

Embracing Embarrassment

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Fear of failure is overrated.

We don’t care as much about failing as we care about being embarrassed.

Picture yourself on a baseball team. If there wasn’t a chance of losing the game, it wouldn’t be nearly as exciting to play hardball. The mantra is, “Win as a team and lose as a team.” Still, no one wants to be the batter who watches strike three pass by or the infielder who fails to snag an easy grounder ala Bill Buckner. The embarrassment would simply be too much.

Now picture yourself on a business team. If every business decision made was guaranteed success, it wouldn’t be nearly as exciting. If your group doesn’t hit their numbers, hopefully you can absorb the hit, adjust and go on. Still, no one wants to be the one who launches an unconventional marketing campaign that fails to get a response, or the champion for the product that flops. The embarrassment would simply be too much.

Do you believe in something you haven’t acted on?  Is there something amazing stirring inside of you, but you quiet it because it scares you?

There are ideas and dreams inside of us, tied up by our fears and insecurities. Innovations and glorious endeavors never begun because we fear embarrassment as an individual.

We resign ourselves to “lose as a team” instead.

By the way, Bill Buckner was not a failure. Amazingly, he ended his (over 20 year) career just 285 hits shy of 3,000. This (near) milestone is so great, baseball enthusiasts created a term for it… The 3,000 Hit Club. Only 27 players achieved 3,000 hits, while still only 88 players reached 2,500 hits since the inception of the league in 1869.

The Onus of Loyalty

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When you hear “customer loyalty,” what do you imagine?

The Happy Couple
The customer gleefully spending all their money with you out of some sense of belonging.

The Ol’ Ball & Chain
The customer is locked into a relationship with you because of terms and conditions or simply a lack of better choices.

The Gold Digger
The customer only stays with you because of the ‘gifts’ you give them.  Once the flow of giving stops, so does the love. 

I saw a billboard for U.S. Cellular the other day.  It read, “We Believe Loyalty Matters.”

It was unclear what they meant by that and it made me think.  I wondered, “Whose loyalty matters?”

Businesses today are so focused on creating customer loyalty.  It is a lofty goal to aspire to be such a great company that people will not leave you for a lower price or better rewards program.  How do you do that?  Which above version of customer loyalty do you pursue?

What if we completely changed our vision of customer loyalty to something like this:

Be loyal to our customers.

Now, what does that change?

Living Among Critics

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Last night, I attended a meeting held by my daughter’s teacher. She was explaining the structure of the class and led us through some sample exercises she uses with the students.

Occasionally, she called upon us parents for volunteers to read or give answers.

I was stunned by the silence and awkward glances downward.

The teacher shared her observation that her students were much more eager to participate than their parents.

It gave me pause to wonder – why were we so hesitant to speak up, give answers… hesitant to take even the smallest risk?  Much has been said of our fear of failure, but failure was not the deciding factor here.  It’s not like our success would be dictated by how well we read “See Jane run.”

How come parents paused when our children would have eagerly spoken up?

I think somewhere between 3rd grade and our 3rd year of college, we have been beaten, chiseled, hardened and restrained by perpetual criticism.  We’re a cynical society.  We make snide remarks all the time about someone’s speech impediment, religious affiliation, choice of wardrobe or choice of friends.  The constant wear has made us paranoid… even as adults.

It’s obvious in politics.  Candidates like McCain, Palin, Obama and Biden know the very words they speak will be used in an attempt to hang them later.  But should they let the critics dictate their speeches, let alone their policies?

How about you?  Are you paranoid because of living among critics?  And how much power do you give them over your life?

More on this from Seth.

Top 5 Ways Advertisers Use Camouflage

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The military spends tons of money to make something blend in and then loses it. Sounds pretty stupid when the army does it, yet advertisers do something even more inept. They spend an insane amount of money buying ad space to get attention, but then camouflage their ads. They still remain invisible because of clutter, attention-spans (Oh, look, there’s a bird!) and generic messages.

Top 5 Ways Advertisers Use Camouflage:

1. Look like the competition.

Ads should highlight what makes you special. To quote the Incredibles, “When everyone is special, then no one is.” That’s especially true when everyone tries to be special in the exact same way.

This Reebok ad is very similar to the Nike ad below (10 years before the Reebok ad).

(source: AdPulp)

Let me emphasize this point.

One of my clients has an employee who previously worked for the competition. Before I worked with this client, their ads were very similar to their biggest competitor’s spots. The employee said before we came in and changed my client’s ads, the competition always knew when my client was advertising because they had more shoppers coming in THEIR doors.

By looking like their competition, my client was sending customers to ‘the enemy.’

2. Advertise where all the competition is.

Why do advertisers have to be right next to their competition? It’s like the CEO went to the marketing department and said, “Castrol is on a NASCAR, why aren’t we?” So then their logo is slapped next to MOROSO and something unreadable (even in a close-up) typed in a script font.

What if you had the audience to yourself, like Sweet Pete’s Bicycle:

(source: Guerrilla Promos)

You get an audience all to yourself.

Likewise, an motor oil company could “rent” a parking spot from their local Auto Zone. Place a temporary sign stating the spot is reserved for users of their product because their engine runs better, fewer leaks, etc.

3. Being irrelevant.

Who cares:

How long your furniture store has been in business?
You’re the #1 car dealer in the metro area?
Your kid is in your TV ad?

When creating your ad, only think and talk of yourself and the customer never will.

Think and talk about the customer and your relationship with them, and they’ll reciprocate.

4. Never change the ‘wrapping paper’.

Has anything changed in your business over the last five years? I would guess so. Then why are you running the same ads?

First, those who didn’t respond to your message yet, won’t.

Second, maybe some responded and didn’t like it. Now they think nothing changed and they’ll still be dissatisfied.

I’m not saying you have to change the brand message, but give it some new wrapping paper every once in a while. If you have a powerful enough message, then it should have legs to adapt.

5. Basically… play it safe.

Being different seems risky. But being the same is even riskier.

“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.”
— General Eric Shinseki, retired Chief of Staff, U. S. Army

—————–

If you’re going to spend money, time and effort crafting a message… don’t throw it all away by painting it camouflage.

Communers and Commuters

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A friend of mine was considering a position as pastor of a church. The church is an hour or so away. He declined the position because of the distance. My wife said the church probably would want someone who lived in their community anyway.

She’s right. Not only is proximity an issue, but there’s something comforting in another person knowing the “hole-in-the-wall” restaurant we love or the fact we had a relative in the obituary this morning. Not because we told them, but because they experienced it… they saw it.

Don’t we all want that? We want communers at our table, not commuters interrupting our lives. When we go to buy hiking equipment, we want an experienced hiker to help us find what we need. But more than that, how comforting is it to hear, “I remember my first hike. I wish I had one of these smaller backpacks. I wore myself out carrying too many unnecessary items. Since you’re going on a weekend hike, I’d recommend keeping your load light.”

As marketers (which we all are, to a degree), we have to remember this.

Do we drive in, drop off our marketing message, then speed back home? Or do we take the time to experience real community with our customers? Do we experience a part of their lives? Eat from their table? Drink from their cup?

Our agency helped a client develop a customer advisory board. We brought in 15 of their top customers, fed them dinner and discussed the company, the community and the customers. It was eye-opening. Assumptions were shattered and revelations came forth.

We made new friends and discovered something new about ourselves. I’m so glad we did it.

Try to commune with your customers. I think you’ll be amazed at the information, insight, and loyalty you gain.

Potential

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Hope you had a great November. I’m glad to be back on my blog. Something is wrong with previous comments. They disappeared. I’m trying to fix it. Is feexed.

During a recent lunch with a friend, he asked me, “What do you believe Dustin?”

I thought for a moment, then his cell phone rang. I was grateful for the time to ponder his question as he took the call.

There’s something powerful that happens when you ask yourself what you believe. The moment seemed filled with mystery and depth.

I realized this: I believe there is incredible, untapped potential inside each person. Most people never reach that potential. They are bound by something. Maybe a hurt, a habit or a false story they tell themselves over and over again.

I believe, at our core, we all desire to see that potential unleashed – yet on the surface it scares us to death.

We’re afraid of reaching that potential and then discovering it wasn’t enough. It didn’t matter. I was rejected. I failed anyway.
We’re afraid of others reaching their potential also. What if he won’t need me anymore? Maybe others will think she’s better than me.

So, we bind them up.

I believe companies and organizations do this all the time. We create rules to a game we don’t even understand. Then we expect everyone else to follow them.

“You can’t move to that square, you don’t have seniority.”

I think we hire, promote and fire people for the wrong reasons.

I believe we condition people to be something they’re not… then reward them for it.

The word ‘standardize’ makes me want to puke!

I believe there’s a way for people to be set free…

…and I believe it is worth the effort. Every bit of it.