What's Great About This Recession...

With all the doomsday talk these days, I thought I would offer a bit of contrary editorial for your reading and consideration.

What's good about this recession? This recession, more than others I have seen, is really cleaning house with businesses that did not make marketing and customer service a priority. Don't get me wrong: I am not saying that any company doing badly in this recession was poorly managed before the recession. What I am saying is that a key marketing strategy in any recession is customer retention. And customer retention can only happen if customers truly value the brand. If you go into a recession with your customers placing a high value on your brand, then when push comes to shove and those customers must decide how to spend their fewer dollars in uncertain times, there is a greater likelihood that they will continue to spend their money on your brand and you will retain them as customers.

Regardless of whether you are currently employed or not, you have an opportunity to watch how virtually every organization you may have been previously interested in working for is handling these challenging economic times. And, while almost every business has been hurt by this recession, there are some number of companies who are still doing well. Pay attention. Watch closely. Some are actually prospering, and a larger number are getting by, turning a profit and taking care of their customers and their employees during all this mess. Those companies should be the ones you want to work for when times are better or they start hiring. Don't be surprised if they are not hiring long before most companies are, too.

To illustrate my point, let me offer for your consideration a local business that I frequent and think is faring quite well when many others are not. The Pita House, located on Pleasantburg Drive in Greenville SC, is a family-run business that offers a variety of foods from the Middle East. It is managed by Ziad with the help of wife, Ikhlas, children, cousins, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces and friends. The place is always full. In fact, several weeks ago another customer surveyed the crowd that day and remarked, "There's no recession at the Pita House." Indeed, there is not.

Now, Ziad will tell you that he is blessed and he is. But he is also a great marketer because great customer service is one of the smartest forms of marketing and the Pita House makes great customer service a top priority. What can other brand-builders learn from Ziad for the future?

1. Be consistent in your quality. In my 500+ meals at the Pita House, I have never had a bad one. Neither have any of my take-out orders ever been inaccurately filled. Never.

2. Make loyal customers feel special. Many times, when I am in that restaurant eating with someone (rather than doing take out), Ziad has brought us a small dessert free-of-charge. This makes me feel appreciated but it also sends a message to my guest that I am a regular, someone special to Ziad and his family and perhaps they will be appreciated in such a way if they return.

3. Distinguish your brand in product and service. While there are a few other restaurants that offer similar cuisine, the Pita House distinguishes itself as much as a family business as it does with its cuisine. When I first went to the Pita House, I left a tip on the table, but John, another manager, followed me out that day and gave me my money back, telling me they were a "family restaurant," meaning that everyone was well-provided for without my tip. The fact that they had so much pride in their "family business" status to refuse the tip left an impression I did not forget.

4. Remember good customers' preferences. Many days I order the same meal because it is the cheapest on the menu. Most days when I walk in, they ask, "The usual?" and I nod my approval. Every now and again, I mix it up and they actually tease me when I do. It is another way they thank me for being loyal to them.

5. Don't let anything come between the brand and its customer relationships. Visit the Pita House tomorrow or in a month or in a year -- you will find the same people at the counter: Ziad, Ikhlas, John, and Manal. They do not vary who meets the customers and who services them. Pita House customers feel valued with the familiarity and that is another reason why they keep coming back. Familiarity doesn't really breed contempt, it breeds comfort. So many organizations change sales reps on their customers all the time. How valued does that make your customer feel? Or the company tries to use some form of technology to distance themselves from their customers. Not smart.

6. Consistently offer good value. The Pita House is by far not the cheapest lunch you can get in Greenville SC. In fact, most diners are paying between $6-8 to dine with Ziad and family. Why? Consistent product and service makes a strong restaurant brand and that is valued by today's consumers when so many others are inconsistent.

Now, I doubt Ziad will have a job for you now or after the recession is over. But others will be hiring and during these bleak times, take a good look around. Where are the great brands of this recession? Some companies are still prospering because they have created highly-valued brands. Those are the companies you will want to work for in the years ahead.

Great customer service is very smart marketing.

This recession will not be our last. In years to come, we will have others and the actions of organizations in this recession can tell you a lot about who you will want to work for in the next recession. Look for businesses and brands that don't just talk about how they value customers... look for the ones who are demonstrating it. Every day.

Thanks for reading.

More to come!

The Process of Building Brand Loyalty

What does it really take to convert the Unbelieving to the Loyal? Isn't that what smart organizations are trying to do... if they take marketing seriously? 

Of course that is what they are trying to do! Even if we were not waist-deep in a recession, that should have been the motive all along. And, it may have taken this economic climate to convince some organizations that what they were doing before this wasn't working. Hey, wake-up calls hurt, but only fools don't answer the ring.

There are three parts of this brand conversion process: 

* Experience

* Acknowledgement

* Articulation

First, the person being converted must have a positive brand experience that is real. And by "real" I mean representative of the brand experience in most situations. The experience cannot be a best case scenario. It has got to be able to be replicated most times. That means that the organization must be organized and managed so that a quality brand experience happens far more than it does not happen. 

Second, the customer (or employee) must acknowledge the experience as a positive one. What I am talking about is a sincere acceptance of the experience by the one doing the experiencing. And that probably tells you a bit more about how positive that experience needs to be. 

Third, the convert must articulate what has happened. S/he needs to do this for themselves, first and then for your prospective or other current customers. The reason this needs to be done is that, many times, only when one can talk or write about a subject are they able to crystallize what the subject (and experience) really meant to them. Most times, consumers do this naturally. We love to talk about the brands we love! And, the more we talk about them, the more we love them. Just human nature. 

Hey, wake-up calls hurt, but only fools don't answer the ring.

Now, where traditional marketing still has a role is in providing the brand cues that help in that articulation of the experience. Today's smart consumer may use these cues differently than their parents did, but they still use them. There are too many consumers using brand descriptors straight out of advertising to deny this. BUT, the advertising must be far more relevant than marketers got away with 25 years ago. 

So, think about it. Make the brand experience real. So real that it is sincerely acknowledged by the customer. And help (via a variety of marketing communications) to provide assistance in how consumers articulate that brand experience.

It goes without saying (but I will say it) that this important process can and should happen with your own employees before you try it on your customers. Remember: Brand Representatives determine Brand Reputation! 

Thanks for checking in. 

More to come. 

Advertising in a Swimsuit: What's right and what's wrong with the ADDY® Awards

(This article first appeared in GSA Business in 2002 and generated quite a bit of controversy. I thought readers might enjoy seeing it again.)

On February 15, the Greenville Advertising Club hosts its annual ADDY® Awards show at the Hyatt. If you have anything to do with advertising or marketing in your job, you’re probably going to this event. There are not many events that I attend in a year that are as much fun as ADDY Night.

The American Advertising Federation (AAF) co-sponsors the local contests with local advertising clubs throughout the country. According to the AAF, the ADDY Awards competition is "the industry's largest and most representative competition for creative excellence." Before you assume that I take advertising awards seriously, let me say that I don’t. With the exception of the Effie® Awards, a national competition that evaluates advertising on the basis of increased sales, I don't put much stock in creative contests or the awards they generate. If the evaluation isn't based on whether the work made the cash register ring, the award show is nothing more than a beauty contest. Advertising should produce sales. If that's not the primary criterion for any evaluation, why bother?

But that's not the point, says Laveda Miles, GAC President (and staunch defender of our creative brethren), "The ADDY competition is a creative contest. Can't we for one night let the folks who actually create the ads be judged and rewarded by their peers? After all, advertising is an art. The competition is not intended to be another Effies."

Jim Henderson used to say, "It's not creative unless it sells." And there are still a few of us who view the creative product as only a selling function of advertising. Any other way of looking at it is self-indulgent, irresponsible and wastes the client's money. Should there be a desire to evaluate ADDY submissions based on whether the creative was effective, we’d need another approach to the selection of the judges who evaluate the work. As it stands now, ADDY judges almost always come exclusively from the advertising industry’s creative side of the business. Rarely are clients, marketing researchers, account planners or ad agency account executives added to the mix of ADDY judges. Yet each of these disciplines contributes to the development of advertising in the Real World.


Unfortunately, what the ADDY Awards suggest is that it's OK to evaluate ads solely on their “creativity,” as if creativity could have another goal other than selling products and services. This kind of thinking takes us down the path of applauding work that may be outrageous, clever, and entertaining, but not necessarily effective. The advertising community undermines its credibility with the business community as a whole with this “let’s pretend” approach to a serious business discipline. Sales effectiveness should be the only criteria by which we evaluate each advertisement in the ADDYs and in our daily jobs.

So, what's good about ADDY Night? Everything else. It brings out virtually everyone associated with marketing and communications in the Upstate and western North Carolina. The few who don't show probably can't attend because of court-ordered curfews. But most will make it. They love the night as much as I do. They'll party hard and generate an enormous amount of good-natured competition for our industry. What most attendees don't know is that ADDY Night is the largest single revenue generator for the Greenville Advertising Club. I've seen the club operate in the red until ADDY Night, when a good turn-out pushes it back into the black.

It's important that the Greenville Ad Club not lose money. GAC sponsors two paid internships each summer for deserving college students. In addition, GAC adopts one non-profit organization each year for a pro bono ad campaign. A good ADDY Night pays for some of these important efforts.

There is another good thing about the ADDYs. It is a contest that allows underdogs to look as good as their larger rivals. Last year, Copia Design, a two-person design firm in Greenville, won 5 ADDYs and 3 Citations for their work, garnering more awards than many larger agencies. Susan Kines GAC ADDY Judging Chair, maintains "The ADDYs may be the only opportunity for a small agency to strut its stuff."

And strut they will. Attendees will be decked out, the awards will gleam and the egos soar. But let's not forget what Jim Henderson said. "It's not creative unless it sells."

Are the Four P's of Marketing Still Relevant?

David Meerman Scott is a business author I think has some wisdom to share. His book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR, had some great ideas to make organizations more successful in their use of the Internet. I liked his book so much that I subscribe to his blog. One of his most recent blogs raised the question of whether the Four P's of marketing are still relevant and Mr. Scott does not think they are. I would like to offer a different point of view.

As students of marketing know, the four P's are product, price, place (of distribution) and promotion. Let's discuss each of them and draw our own conclusions as to their relevance. And, I think it important to acknowledge that each of the four P's is a strategic discussion in itself. Following that, I would like to introduce a fifth P for your consideration.

The Product (or service) any organization decides to market needs to be thought out significantly before introduction. What buyer needs will it meet to ensure success? How will it differ from competitive products already available? Will it be better or merely different? How will it be formulated or delivered to the market? Will it developed in-house or will the product be manufactured by someone else and then sold under another brand name? What will be the level of quality of this product? Acceptable or of the highest level possible? This is important because the pricing structure will be influenced by decisions about product or service quality. I can go on and on, but I hope I make the point that no one can market any product or service successfully without thinking about issues like this.

A pricing discussion must closely follow the product discussion. Product quality and features will dramatically impact the pricing model. An organization cannot introduce a superior product without it usually impacting their pricing substantially. They must decide what the market can bear from a pricing standpoint and make their product decisions based on that. Or, make the pricing decision based on the product quality level they want to introduce. Either way, they must carefully consider the ramifications of both issues and their inter-relatedness.

The decision about Place (of distribution) is also a critical component of any marketing plan. Will the product only be available in a traditional bricks and mortar retail location or will it also be available via the Internet? Most consumer businesses now have a web component to their marketing and any marketer would have to give me a darn good reason why they did not want to market the product via the Internet before I advised against it. And even with the explosive growth of brands available on the Internet, we marketers still have to be thinking about a variety of distribution channels. But let's just think retail bricks and mortar for a moment. Will the product be available at only one location or several? Where would those locations be? Would network marketing also be utilized? Would the distribution of the product include wholesalers? More complex distribution channels? Somebody better be thinking about this stuff!

In their book, The Discipline Of Market Leaders, Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema discuss three different value disciplines one of which every organization should adopt if they are to truly be successful. Those are 1) operational excellence, which usually leads to a low price strategy because the organization can produce the item for a lower cost; 2) a product leadership, which will offer a product that is superior to others in the marketplace; and 3) customer intimacy, which will deliver what specific customers want. While not exactly on target, the book closely mirrors the first three P's of the marketing mix.

Now to Promotion, the fourth P. I have never heard it discussed this way but I think it important to understand that Promotion is somewhat independent of the first three mix variables. What I mean by this is that Promotion, the fourth P, must promote the other three P's of marketing. And not just promote them, but every brand strategy should include a decision about which of the first three P's is most important. Thus, every strong brand will emphasize one of the P's more than any other (product superiority vs. price/value vs. availability/convenience) and all the fourth P (promotion) will do is promote that P to the greatest extent possible.

Promotion, the fourth P, must promote the other three P's of marketing.

To those who believe that because the Internet is now upon us, everything has changed with regard to marketing's four P's or even with just Promotion, take another look. Everything has not changed. A lot has changed, particularly in the area of marketing tactics, and we have a lot more opportunities (and challenges) with the Internet and other new media, especially in the area of promotion. But to say that everything has changed in marketing and that what any of us knew 10-15 years ago is of no value, throws the baby out with the bath water.

Before I let you go, one final point. I think there is a fifth P that should never be omitted in a discussion of the four P's of marketing. It is the most important P and I have never seen this P discussed with the other four P's. I maintain that the fifth P is the Prospect for the sale. We must always put that prospect in the center of this discussion. What does the prospect want from us? What is their need that we are trying to fill?

If we can keep the Prospect in mind, in the center of this intellectual debate (and in our marketing planning), we will ensure that our decisions regarding the other four P's have the best chance of being successful.

Thanks for reading. More to come.

A Long-term View of Marketing Wisdom

I read a lot of books about marketing. My bookcase is full of them. And I have learned quite a bit from those who wrote those books. (My theory is that authors of marketing books have one really good book in them and, after that, they just re-hash that theory over and over.)

What bothers me about many books on business/marketing (especially more recent ones) is that to sell that book or at least to create greater awareness of it, the author had to bash all marketing approaches that preceeded their book. Most of us who have been in marketing for a decade or two have seen different philosophies come and go with respect to how to sell things.

My "marketing hero" was Rosser Reeves, who brought the advertising world the Unique Selling Proposition in his landmark book, Reality In Advertising. Rosser's philosophy of sticking to one relevant point and hammering away at it with as much TV as you could buy sold a lot of products. Smart marketers still think about Rosser's lessons when they review advertising.

However, in his day, Rosser debated relentlessly with his friend David Ogilvy and with Bill Bernbach, who founded Doyle Dane Bernbach and ushered in the creative revolution. The truth is, all of them had valid points about how to sell things and their philosophies, when implemented, sold a lot of products for a lot of companies. They all worked, to some extent, depending on market conditions.

Were any of these three thought leaders correct in every way vs. what their competitors believed? Of course not. Each had some wisdom and tried to apply it as best they could to create sales for their clients.

What is happening today is that virtually every book you read is trying to tell you that everything you ever learned about marketing is irrelevant in 2009. We all (ought to) know this is simply not true. They want you to think that their approach is the new (and only) way you are going to sell anything to anybody.

A lot of brand-building happens before the first word is spoken about the brand.

I am certainly not saying that there is nothing new under the sun. For sure there is. Consumers have a voice now that they never had. Smart organizations can listen to them much more inexpensively than they ever did in the past. And they can communicate back with with those consumers when consumers are not happy with their brands. And they better.

What are our clients to do? Should they be doing "experience marketing" or "word-of-mouth marketing" or building "brand communities" or what? The truth is, they need to be doing it all. Or at least most of it. Because most of it will work.

However, they also may want to think about continuing some of the other, more traditional brand-building tactics that worked for them in the past. If they don't know what worked and what did not, they need to find ways to determine that. New technologies have made it amazingly simple and inexpensive to measure customer attitudes about brands. No one really knows how we form our brand preferences. We sometimes think we do but those are secrets that marketers will not uncover for a long, long time.

So much of what is written these days has to do with reach tactics. But clients need to think first about why their brand is relevant to their customers. A lot of brand-building happens before the first word is spoken about the brand. There is so much up-front work to do if the customer is going to find satisfaction with the brand. And satisfaction is paramount.

So, go ahead and buy those marketing books and I will, too. There is wisdom in them. Combine that wisdom with what you aready know to be effective. The goal should be to add to that snowball of marketng wisdom that you have been rolling along for years.

Thanks for reading. More to come.

Dismantling Critical Infrastructure

I recently heard the CEO of a marketing communications firm talk about the advantages to organizations of maintaining marketing budgets in the face of this economic crisis. While I agree with him philosophically, I think the issue is broader than just maintaining a marketing budget during these tough times.

What I am witnessing almost daily is the dismantling of critical operational infrastructure of many organizations. And, as these organizations know, the building of that infrastructure was not easy. It took time to design the processes that were needed and to build an infrastructure to support that process. Then, they had to hire all those people and ensure they were trained adequately to support the process. THAT was a lot of work!

Now, organization after organization seems willing to throw out that infrastructure for the sake of what? Profits? Or real survival? I think this is a key question every "for profit" CEO and their board of directors need to think about. If it is actually the survival of the organization, I support those decisions. But I am not so sure that is always the case. There is increasing pressure on every publicly-traded company to deliver profits every year. And, most senior-level executives will admit that sometimes future opportunities are sacrificed for present profit. Even when those future profits might have far greater potential than the current market situation might offer. That is a reality of our "give it to me NOW" society.

In addition, I fear that businesses may be reacting like some of the journalists I have been listening to and giving in to a panic that only makes our situation worse. These challenging times call for courageous leadership from CEOs (and their boards) everywhere.

During the last recession, I owned a small consulting practice, which I sold in 2005. Near the end of 2002, I realized that I needed to revise my goals for that year and the near future ... that the ambitions I had entered the year with were not going to be realized. The insight I had at that time was that I needed to do whatever I could to make sure that my company made it through to the other side as unscathed as possible, regardless of what my personal lifestyle (that came from salary from the business) became in the interim. I knew that my company needed to be ready for that inevitable recovery when it did come.

What I am witnessing almost daily is the dismantling of critical infrastructure of many organizations.

Interestingly, I had witnessed three competitors close their doors and I did not want that to happen my business. So, I made the changes that allowed me to survive those difficult 18 months so that I could rise with the tide that came in 2004. And rise it did and my company did. But in those dark times, I made a decision that I would take very little income (and minimize my debt) so that I did not harm its ability to compete when things began to turn around. In essence, I sacrificed current profits for future profits.

As I look at these times, I cannot help but wonder if some organizations would not be better off if the shareholders made a decision to forgo profits in 2009-2010 for the sake of maintaining as much infrastructure as possible. To be sure, some cuts most likely have to be made. But there is also a sound argument for maintaining as many people, particularly in critical customer service areas, as possible. Every business owner will have to make this call themselves as they consider goals beyond our current economic conditions.

Thanks for reading. More to come.

[Photo used under the Creative Commons License courtesy of Flickr.]

Brand Relationship Channels (sm)

In tough economic times, it is even more important that organizations solidify their brand reputations with their publics. They just can't afford to lose a sale because of a tarnish to their reputation.

There are three key relationship channels that every organization needs to think about. Usually, they only think about one of these. The one they think about is the company's relationship with their customers. Actually, this is only half correct. The real relationship channel they need to develop and ensure it is managed well is the relationship between their employees (teams) and their customers.

But there are two other, equally important relationship channels that organizations should develop and manage. The first is the relationship management has with their employees (teams) that ensures the brand is understood and represented professionally. I call this the Vertical or "top-down" channel, but it is as much bottom-up as it is top-down.

In tough economic times, it is even more important that organizations solidify their brand reputations with their publics.

The second relationship channel is what I alluded to above: the relationship between employees and customers. The reason this is so important is that most organization CEOs and management don't have the time to spend with their customers so they better have confidence is what their employees are doing with them ... that relationship better be solid. I call this the Horizontal or "down and out" relationship.

The third relationship channel is Circular and I call it "out and around." This is the relationship between current customers and prospective customers. These prospective customers may be their friends, families, colleagues, etc. Or, they may not even know them. But current customers can still be a huge influence on prospective customers if this relationship channel is developed and managed well.

The crux of all this is that human beings are the most authentic representation of any brand. People who truly understand the brand and are committed to representing it well could be a powerful brand-building resource in an organization's marketing mix.

Maybe the most powerful resource in their entire arsenal.

Thanks for reading. More to come.

[Photo used under the Creative Commons License courtesy of Flickr.]