Here's tweeting at you, kid

Fads dominate marketing as they do general society. But while societal fads tend to be mere lane markers on the road of life, I think marketing fads are different in that they usually represent solid breakthroughs that are layered in a lot of hype and misdirection. In fact-- before writing this I sat back and tried to think about the marketing fads from, say the last 15 years, that turned out to be unabashed wastes of time, and I had a hard time coming up with a lot of examples.

Okay let me refine my criteria here -- I'm not talking about linguistic fads related to all things "extreme," "world wide web" or ((cough cough)) "green." I mean new methods or channels with which to connect with consumers. Things like so-called viral marketing, multicultural marketing, influential marketing a la Gladwell/Tipping Point, gamer marketing, marketing via blog, marketing via personalization or customization-- heck even the advent of the damn website was fad-like initially, shrowded in mystery and runaway euphoria. All of these things burst on the scene in varying degrees, awash with countless articles and books and PDF'd encyclicals, but when the dust settled found (or are finding) their proper places in the marketer's playbook.

I'm reminded of the old Conan O'Brien skit, "In The Year 2000," where Andy Richter, dressed up in a futuristic robe holding a flashlight to his face, set up Conan's humorously far fetched predictions for the future. Like... "In the Year 2000: Male doctors will no longer be allowed to become gynecologists when a group of them are caught high-fiving at a convention." Okay, you had to have watched the skit to get it, but trust me it was gold because it poked fun at the mystique people attach to the events and advances of the future. And this-- this is the thing that ravages the marketing industry, every time one of these movements come down the pike in such predictable fashion that cause so many of us to drop everything and chase our tails. Cue lame graph:




From frenzied birth, articles begin clogging up our inboxes, followed by ample name dropping of said trend at every meeting and cocktail party attended by marketing types. Soon the buzz trickles up to the CEO, who begins forwarding them to the CMO with dubious notations, like:

"We need to be doing this now, brief me on your plan soon. Thx!"

The CMO assembles the marketing team, who then calls in the agency, and inevitably it's the youngest kid on the account team who becomes a rockstar for bringing everyone up to speed on the subject. Reluctantly the CMO signs off on the obligatory "check the box" initiatives, naturally reallocating the necessary resources to pay for it. Meetings take place with fly-by-night specialty shops, with weird sounding names like Monkey Flatulence Posse, who've suddenly positioned themselves as the new authorities on the movement. Meanwhile the PR folks busy themselves with press releases depicting the company as enjoying wild success by way of the new trend. What a show!

All of this, of course, sets up the inevitable backlash. A couple blogs start appearing online, "Is X a fad?" Then the journalists start piling on, and a brand new wave of email flings in all directions, except these are prefaced with notations, like:

"Dude, this guy took the words right out of my mouth! I've been saying the same thing for months, where's the profit model in this idea? Waste of time, hello?!? LMFAO"

The backlash shoves the marketing trend and its disciples into the background, and for a brief time there is almost a return to the old way of doing things. The CMO breathes a deep sigh of relief. And that's roughly the moment that common sense starts driving the practical application of the former marketing fad.

We can see evidence of this today. Think about the trends beginning to face a measure of backlash. Email marketing for example, which seems sensible enough. Consumers sign up to receive email messages from some company they patronize or admire, lured by the promise of special offers and inside information. Email marketing shops dutifully spring up to fill the need. Everybody piles in. Only consumers begin to suffer from subscription overload as their inboxes clutter up. Most don't take the time to unsubscribe, but merely delete or ignore them. Often an advertiser isn't even afforded the chance to win a last second reprieve because the #%!&@ spam filter delivers their message like this:




Of course the companies paying for these messages have rightly questioned the ROI on their investments. Email marketing companies are beginning to lose clients as resources shift into other mediums. There's an idea here, but it needs sharpening. Number one, the technical hurdle of spam filters need to be overcome. But more importantly, the content of the emails, themselves, need to be more valuable to the consumer to survive the delete button. The medium is undergoing the necessary pruning as sex appeal is replaced by practical strategic and technical thinking, and what will emerge from this period is a potent arm for companies to dialogue with their most promising customers.

Is mobile marketing poised to suffer the same backlash soon? All signs point to yes. Like email, it is supposed to be an opt-in medium. And the open rates right now are high because most consumers haven't yet overloaded themselves with a lot of hasty subscriptions. But how intrusive will this get when the same thing occurs-- people sifting through promotional garbage as they try to find critical texts and emails? What kinds of messages are people really receptive to on their phones? Sales? Coupons? Insider tips? What's its worth to an advertiser compared to a message delivered by way of a print ad, or a billboard or a street team? Is it more appropriate for certain products or audiences? There's a lot of heavy lifting to be done on the subject. Should you be there right now, or is it better to merely collect mobile numbers and wait for your competitors to spend their money making the mistakes?

Or how about the mother of all fads right now, social networking? Talk about a feeding frenzy... no marketer wishing to remain relevant wants to be seen sitting on the sidelines of this trend, and thus companies have poured into the "Big 3" (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube) with a vengeance-- open accounts now, ask question later! I mean, after all-- it's FREE right? A FREE chance to interact with potential consumers on their turf, why... it's just like ... well, any advertising come to think of it. Important yes, but what's your plan and how do you cut through the clutter? I mean who really cares that you have a Facebook site, so does everyone else including my grandmother and my dog, so what's cool about just being there? What now, man? Companies are starting to realize that what it takes to be relevant in social media certainly isn't FREE-- unless the countless hours your marketing staff spends developing posts and polls and tweets and videos is inconsequential to your bottom line? What else could they be doing with that time, and how much is enough, and how are 100,000 "fans" going to impact sales this year? In 2 years are you going to look like a jackass for your preoccupation with social media, particularly if it's perceived to have come at the expense of other critical fundamentals?

Alright, alright, time for a point... my point is, most marketing fads aren't really fads, they're actually solid breakthroughs masked by predictable hype-- which takes a few years to subside before its true merits and practical applications begin to surface. Therefore I think it's prudent to ask yourself-- do I so want to be the cool guy at the cocktail party by being a pioneer, or am I going to take the time understand what I'm getting into and proceed with grounded, strategic purpose? Are there trade offs associated with plunging in today (or, conversely, with waiting)? In an era of shrinking marketing staffs and resources is it really antiquated to measure a fad against other proven techniques for driving profitable revenue? Don't misunderstand me on this -- if you know what you're doing, and why you're doing it, and what you hope to accomplish, and whether it's appropriate for your brand, by all means go for it. Sometimes it's important to wing it, to improvise-- it's part of our world, and why we love what we do. But so also should a healthy dose of perspective and skepticism be part of what you do, less you spend your career chasing your tail each time a fad reaches your inbox.

A value is a discount, except when it isn't

The recession hath wreaked thunder and lightning on marketers across the land, but like cockroaches we scattered to adapt to the new playbook, surviving to fight another day. Earlier in the decade we were all experts on premiums and exclusivity... pushing them into any and every category, be it bringing cachet to formally pedestrian purchases like coffee and toothpaste, or pushing the limits of prestige in arenas like automotive and new home construction. Everybody had to be premium, or dabble in it anyway.

And now? Well, prestige is passe. Today's mantra is value... delivering reliable value to the consumer in ways that don't implode your profit margin. Value value value! And what is value? I don't know, just slash prices man! Cut cut cut. I want to see prices crashing to the earth like so many pieces of lint from an overly laundered t-shirt! Now let's see some slashin'!

It's time for a definition: What exactly is this value of which I speak? Greenwood's definition: Overdelivering at a given price point. Now I know what you're thinking... thank you, Captain Obvious! But seriously, it's broad precisely because value is such a wide playing field, encompassing ... well, just about all of commerce actually. Think of value as a line in the sand, separating treasure from garbage in nearly every category at every price point. And slashing your price is sometimes the most inefficient means of delivering it to your consumers.

I'll use a competitor of mine to make my point, since they're in the news lately -- we'll just call them Anonymous. Now Anonymous mass markets an affordable food product with fair-to-good quality, so one would think they'd be well-positioned to succeed in a horrendous economy. But Anonymous decided to double down in recent months by introducing -- heck, showcasing -- a discount menu of sorts, with pricing starting at as little as $5.

Now I don't have access to Anonymous' marketing research, but if you put a gun to my head and forced me to guess what their consumers were left thinking, I'd say they walked away thinking that their food was worth about 5 bucks -- meaning, it wasn't very good. And I'd also guess that their quality and value scores have fallen through the floor as a result. And given their recent announcement that Q3 comparable store sales plummeted a staggering 13% versus a year ago, I'm guessing they now suspect this was a bad strategy. If so, they're right.

Slashing prices is sometimes the worst way to communicate value. It might drive a short-term sales spike, but much like a sugar high it'll probably leave you in the end with little more than a headache.

Now don't get me wrong, price is a critical component of value -- fundamental to the consumer equation actually. In fact if Einstein, himself, were here and into marketing he might even draw up an equation like this:


Ok, no he wouldn't. But I'm no Einstein, so it's ok for me to do it. The idea here is you can go after the numerator ("stuff") or denominator ("price") -- the problem with the latter route is that most consumers use price as a tool for determining value, so, generally speaking, not only are you actually undermining your fundamental value equation by slashing prices, in most cases you'll lower your revenue by taking in fewer dollars per transaction. Furthermore, what happens when the economy improves? Think customers will conveniently forget what you charged them prior to the recovery? It will take years of brand building to earn back your pricing power.

And while I'm at it, hasn't value always basically been in style? Has there ever been a period of time where consumers will willingly throw their money down a rathole without a reasonable return on their dollars? Oh sure, what consumers seek and prioritize does indeed change with the times -- but whether it's exclusivity or quality or experience or authenticity, consumers are always looking for a great value equation. Ritz Carlton is a great value brand. So is Trader Joes, H&M, McDonalds, Hertz, you can go down the list, but these are all brands that overdeliver on the dollar, and that is relevant in any economy.

Alright, so my point? Well I have 2 points.

Point #1: Value is always in style. A great brand delivers great value, always and forever. They're almost the same thing. Maybe they are the same thing actually. You should always strive to be a value brand regardless of the macroeconomic environment.

Point #2: If you want to be known for delivering great value, focus on the top of the equation. Deliver more stuff for the dollar. And this is where you marketers have to earn your salaries... the focus needs to be squarely on the intersection between the things your organization does well and the things consumers care about. Again, channeling my best Einstein:


Now I know this is a tad simplistic, but the fact is a well-positioned brand should provide a straight-forward roadmap for finding your right stuff in any climate. On the other hand a poorly positioned brand with little in the way of credible and desirable differentiation will handcuff a marketer attempting this exercise, and like any good commodity leave little outside of price with which to compete. But wasn't that plain ol' Branding 101 in the era before value became the latest buzz word?

It's the execution, dummy

Companies pay handsomely to hire gurus to deliver the next big strategy, or, occasionally research that their high paid gurus will then turn into the next big strategy. Organizations will literally devote months, sometimes years, in this quest for the holy grail, as if there is only one true path to success, one right way to beat their P&L targets. And all too often there are marketing charlatans waiting around every corner acting like the smartest people on earth, claiming to hold the secrets to success, the knowledge of the right way forward. If only they would move the current crop of marketing bozos out of the way and tap them for the real answers.

Now don't get me wrong, it's important to know -- to internalize -- your strategic roadmap. How are you going to make the most money today, and how are you going to set up your organization to make even more money tomorrow? Core strengths, consumer mindsets, marketplace positioning, competitive battlegrounds -- indeed, vital stuff, without which an organization would drift directionless into a sea of irrelevance and failure. This post isn't trying to diminish the importance of these things.

But one of the primary observations I have made in my career thus far is the following: there is an abundance of smart strategies in the marketplace today, but a dearth of people with the ability to properly execute them. In other words, far too often there is no longstanding connection between the strategy or brand positioning they slaved over for 6 months and the actions they take in the marketplace ...creative development, pricing plan, media mix, communications approach, customer experience -- something gets mangled or disconnected in the end. Why? Because too many organizations are enamored with superior strategies instead of superior execution. The day in and day out focus -- the coordination -- the commitment of seeing it through to nitty gritty perfection, as if your next meal depended on it, isn't there.

Let's face it, organizations are just like people. You can take your life in a number of directions, and strive to be anything you want to be. But ask yourself this: How many friends or associates or family members do you know that go through life declaring goals, priorities, missions, plans, yet never end up doing jack to follow up on them in any meaningful, sustaining way? They talk the talk, and you love them, but you just know, dollars to doughnuts, they'll eventually be distracted by the grind of their lives and forget all about it. Now let me ask you, how many folks do you know that lay down a goal or mission or priority and actually see it through, with 100% effort and focus, whether people are paying attention or not, to it's most successful, sustained implementation? Yep, we all know both types of people, but it's the latter group, the shining, distinguished minority, that set themselves apart from the gaggle of dreamers.

Alright, so my point? My point is, there are several paths most companies can take to success, so go ahead and pick one already and spend the rest of your time -- your blood, sweat and tears -- outworking your competition with superior execution. Make everything you do sharper, more consistent, highly coordinated... in a way, almost more predictable in this one sense -- in its relentless cohesion with your organization's strategy for making more money today, tomorrow and forever. Get everybody on board with the direction (and for everyone "not on board," get them far out the way), and play out every gritty detail to synchronic perfection... and it will almost be impossible to lose, because your competition will be too focused on laying the groundwork for their next big strategy.