Mahatma Gandhi, Never get out of the Boat marketing/business guru #124
“Carefully watch your thoughts for they will become your words. Manage and watch your words for they will become your actions. Consider and judge your actions for the will become your habits. Acknowledge and watch your habits for they will become your values. Understand and embrace your values for they will become your destiny.”
also Unfrozenmind...
Delighted to report that this months winner in Neil's Think Tank monthly was none other than Jonothan MacDonald's Isabella Barwinska post, as nominated by yours truly.
It was a close run thing with David Cushman's equally excellent The User is the Destination Now a close second place.
Wouldn't mind being in the pub to hear that conversation, vote rigging accusations etc ;)
Nominations for posts from November will be open at Only Dead Fish at the start of December, if there's anything you've read recently you deem worthy of wider acclaim.
Going through a creds presentation yesterday - and inspired by a tweet from @samismail pulling me up on 'marketing speak' - I noticed myself editing and removing certain words.
Forever.
Here's some of them that have been banished alonside their replacements;
Consumer (nuff said) - replaced with person/people
Driving (as in driving traffic, registration etc) - replaced with encouraging/attracting
Capture (data etc) - replaced with asking for/ rewarding
Audience (no-brainer there!) - replaced with community
Targeting - replaced with involving
I will be fining myself 1GBP of the realm for each usage of the above and donate the proceeds to a named charity at Christmas time. Hopefully it won't be much, so i would appreciate any additions you have to the list and if you care to join in with your own effort please do, and you can display the badge below in your own space.
Here's the view from Geronimo HQ on Berners St W1.
The large hole in the ground is what should be 'NoHo Square' - as sort of Covent Garden-esque shopping/restaurant/apartment development.
Developers Candy & Candy (CPC Group) have apparently run out of cash - they're also reputedly defaulting on a multi $million loans for land bought in US for other developments.
So who knows whats going to happen to the space?
Any suggestions?
Photo by resident Geronimo snapper, Johnny Mitchell.
Not turned out that bad for Russell Brand.
DVD rentals site LoveFilm.com reports that Russell Brand's stand-up DVD rentals have increased by 133% during the kerfuffle over the Andrew Sachs answering machine prank.
"He's controversial, always on the edge offending others".
Of course he is. That's what he does and thats why we love him.
Even Andrew Sachs was not that bothered, a bit miffed but an apology in quiet and a couple of beers would have done the trick.
Read this sum up by Paul Carr which nails it.
quote:
'In Russell Brand’s defence, the Mail on Sunday can go fuck itself. And so can the Daily Mail.'
Lessons to learn...
To paraphrase of a couple of Seth-isms;
The opposite of 'great' is not 'very bad'.
Its average.
Average is boring
Average is invisible.
If it's average it's never going to work
Because no-one will notice it.
And no-one will talk about it.
Ideas that spread win
And Ideas that spread are the ideas that go to the edge.
Everywhere, the forces for mediocrity align.
Jonathan, if your listening...resist!
Nice little viral-type thingy promoting the Sony-Ericsson W595 which enables uploading video direct to youtube.
The piece was created by Brando-digital, who have recently been joined by David Cushman as Director of Social Media.
Play with it here.
I have a question over what happens to the data I give afterwards, though?
Here's the 'my inbox' piece I've written for Marketing Direct magazine. Not sure when it's being published - couple of weeks I suppose - so treat this as a sneak preview.
It still amazes me how so few companies go anywhere close to doing email marketing properly.
Seth Godin said in Permission Marketing (nearly 10 years ago now, yikes!) – [email ie permission marketing ] ‘…is the privilege (not the right) of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who actually want to get them.’
The key words there are ‘personal’ and ‘relevant’ .
The success of any direct marketing is directly proportionate to the level of personalisation and relevance – to me, me, me – of the content, and the level of permission I have granted to the brand.
Miss that out and I’ll most likely ignore it.
With that in mind, my losers of the month are Oasis.
Somewhere back in 1998 I must have signed up for some mailing list or other. I have not heard a dickybird since, until now when they have something new to punt.
Oasis’ PR must have hired some multi channel bright spark who thinks it’s a good idea to bombard unsuspecting punters with tour dates and release news down the phone and email with annoying frequency and at silly times of the day. I was woken up by a text message about the album release at 5am the other day and now seem to get emails about world tours every day. Despite unsubscribing the message has not got through.
Just because you have my details doesn’t mean I want to hear about every thing you are doing.
If you are playing in Guildford or Basingstoke maybe. You know where I live, after all?
Personal. Relevant.
Why persist with one-way, broadcast tactics? I’ve volunteered information and given you permission to contact me when you might have something of interest to talk to me about. I probably have a purchase history.
With Mamas and Papas I do.
In fact I just spent 2 grand on furniture with them about two weeks ago!
So their one-size-fits-all 30% off furniture in November shot was particularly annoying.
A personalised, relevant communication would have recognized that and give me an offer on some other product.
Good job I’m not a vegetarian or the the massive side of roast beef oozing pink juices featured on my Waitrose promo email might have offended. They have never asked me of course.
At least the info overload is kept to a minimum,
Though I don’t get the offer. ‘If you don’t enjoy one of our products we’ll refund or replace’ – except this doesn’t apply to their online shopping service partner Ocado – I’m already confused so they have lost me.
When I attempt an order I’m told that the ‘Waitrose Deliver’ service is not available in my postcode area.
Might have been a better idea to check that out before sending me the email.
I used to love the lastminute.com emails from a couple of years back.
Seasonal themes, cool graphics and edgy humour made them stand out form the usual boring travel industry stuff .
The format has gone a bit dull but there’s still a bit of personality.
The usual ‘ If you cannot view this email line click here..’ is replaced with ‘Gone a bit Picasso? See it clearly here’
OK, the content is not that personal or relevant but the little bit of human-ness allows them to get away with it.
I’ve crowd-sourced a contribution from Sally, one of our Account Directors on Dorothy Perkins ‘whole-site-in-an-email’ newsletter
featuring fairly unauthentic editorial supposedly written by celeb fashion ‘guru’ Gok Wan.
Sally says ‘the content is up to date, nicely written and not overly sales-y. It’s nice, clean and simply laid-out – very readable.
Asos.com did this format first but it works well . As long as it’s not too frequent, I don’t mind receiving this, and it’s a great way to harness ‘immediate’ shopping, i.e. click through and buy something online now.
I also like that the overall hierarchy puts fashion tips above the 50% off offer. Not sure about the Gok Wan content but that’s probably just me!’
With tough economic times ahead, it’s more important than ever to nurture loyalty; and make you’re your marketing work as hard as possible. By keeping the focus on being personal and relevant , rewarding those customers who are paying attention – they’ve given permission – and delivering the kind of content , offers and products (!) that reflect their lifestyle, circumstances and interests you are in with a chance.
I'm trying to develop a Creative Brief template, if you have a minute.
In a non-advertising context where we are looking to create content (or to facilitate the creation of content by others) and utility; what does the brief look like?
Here's where i'm at - suggestions, modifications, critisisms all welcome.
Position in 8 words…
In a nutshell, what do we want to do?
The Brand
What does it look like? How does it feel?
What do people actually say/think about it?
Who are the community we are looking to serve?
Who are we talking with?
What level of permission do we have with them?
But who are they really?
How do they think? What music do they like? Who are their friends?
Where do they play? etc
Why should I believe you?
What backs this up? Prove it. What de we rally know..facts?
Call to action?
What do we want the community to do as a result of engaging with this?
Why?
What is the background or context?
Media?
Are there specific media we need to address?
What data do we want to ask for?
How do we measure?
What will success look like?
What do we want people to think as a result of participating?
UPDATE:
Thanks to @deirdre for pointing me to this conversation around branded utility from 2006...
I just recieved a free copy of Seth Godin's new book 'Tribes', released in the uk Nov 6th I think.
Everyone who pre-ordered has been sent a free extra copy - the idea being that you pass on your paid for copy to someone else. Ideally someone who needs to read it.
Plenty of references to core Seth themes -'ideas that spread, win' - 'average is invisible' - this time though it feels more like a personal development book than straight up marketing.
We're used to Seth coining a new phrase with each book (permission marketing, purple cow etc) - this time it's 'sheepwalker' - a follower/defender of the status quo. Quality.
excerpt:
'[many people spend all day]...trying to prevent their organisations from from being devoured by the forces of the new. It must be wearing them out. Defending mediocrity is exhausting'
I must admit this slipped past my radar until recently.
Nectar, the UK supermarket loyalty card sceme, now gives you music 'free' as rewards.
Perks are the new free...or what trendwatching call perkonomics
'A new breed of perks and privileges, added to brands' regular offerings, is satisfying consumers’ ever-growing desire for novel forms of status and/or convenience, across all industries. The benefits for brands are equally promising: from escaping commoditization, to showing empathy in turbulent times.'
For certain artists and genres the 'perk' model suits better than the 'free' model of radiohead, prince et al.
The music is free but manages to retain it's 'value' in what could be described as a slightly jaded market of free everything (ie free just means 'worthless').
And i'm still trying to work out where this sits in Chris Andersons 'four kinds of free'.
For added value, fans who downloaded Dido's free track ‘Look No Further’ are entered into a prize draw to win a VIP trip with 4 nights accomm to a playback of her new album in NYC.
Just in case i forget, this will be up there with my potential nominations for think tank next month.
sample from intro (and it's mostly all caps! - beware...)
'[TOPWARE] UNTIL YOU SUED ISABELLA [BARWINSKA] YOUR GAME AND BRAND WAS REALLY POPULAR.
THE SECOND YOU DID, YOU RUINED EVERYTHING.'
The first Think Tank (a bit of background here) post of the month, initiated by Neil at Only dead Fish is Gestures and Communication from Chroma. Congrats.
excerpt:
'Thinking about media, social media and the decline of Grand Gestures in this way, it occurred to me that as the small gestures multiply, and the Grand Gestures wane (either by sheer media fragmentation that will render it harder to achieve, or by people just ignoring Grand Gestures all together), what will the communications model look like? What, if anything, will replace the Grand Gestures?'
In simple terms, the thing I love most about all this interwebs business is nothing to do with technology or marketing or any of that stuff.
It's the connectivity and the discovery that fascinates me.
A random tweet by J_Mac pointing to this site by Unfrozen mind revealed an alladin's cave of ideas on creativity and innovation.
here's a sample from one of their 'vision' pieces 'The lotus economy'.
'This transition from economic value to economic creativity marks a paradigm shift from the “Box-Economy”, measured by the optimisation of moving boxes, thinking in boxes, putting people in boxes and exchanging boxes, to the “Lotus-Economy”, measured by personal transformation, creativity and innovation. It has manifested itself as a shift from an economy based on producing and buying things to an economy in which the primary unit of exchange is “meaning” where organisations become hothouses for ideas and the revolution of the human spirit.'
There was a joke when I was at art school between the graphic designers (them) and paineters and sculptors (us).
The designers would mock ' heh, you won't see many job ads saying 'sculptors wanted' when we walk out of here...'
I'm joining up dots with this, A Whole New Mind, buddhist economics etc.
Anything else?
