Dick Martin Blogs

Newsy

In Rebuilding Brand America, I cited research showing that media tended to follow the political and social views of their target audience.  Conservatives don't watch Fox News because it's conservative; Roger Aisles made it conservative to attract conservative viewers.  Al Jazeera reports the news from an Arab perspective because that's the environment in which it was founded and operates.

To find what Carl Bernstein called the "best available version of the truth," readers and viewers need to seek out journalism told from multiple perspectives.  The Internet has made that easier than ever.  One site currently in beta, Newsy, analyzes and synthesizes news coverage of important global issues from multiple sources.  Its unique method of presenting how different media outlets around the world are covering a story provides context to help viewers understand complex global issues.

Iran's Youth Movement

Back in the 1970s, Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote an article that helped explain why the Vietnam War protests represented a sea-change in American society.  The key, he said, was demography -- the Baby Boom generation, which was then of draft age and personally affected by conflict, had sufficient critical mass to dominate public discourse and change the course of history.  

However the Iranian election turns out, the country's supreme Ayatollah would be wise to dig up a copy of Moynihan's article. About 65 percent of Iran's population is under 30, well-educated, and eager to end the country's isolation from the West.  While the ayatollahs control the country's mainstream media, they have little sway over the media that its young people actually use -- blogs, instant messaging, Twitter, Facebook and the like.

That's how they organized the mass protests that evaporated President Ahmadinejad's lead in less than a month.  Taking a cue from the last U.S. presidential election, the poster in the photo above reads "Change for Iran."

Whether Ahmadinejad loses or wins, Iranian politics -- and society -- may be changing in ways no one expected.

PR Is Dead

  Even the Oxford English Dictionary has to bend to popular usage now and then.  On that basis, PR is not dying, it's dead. All that's left is to bury the body. 

Meanwhile, it's no wonder many people are beginning to ask, "what's that smell?"  

The popular definition of PR has two parts -- (1) keep people happy and (2) failing that, keep them oblivious.  Easy access to real-time information and the rise of the social media to spread it have made both tasks much more difficult, if not impossible.  

Of course, as someone who spent his entire 32-year career in public relations, I know that the popular definition of the function is a crude caricature.  But when push comes to shove -- which describes the current environment quite nicely -- you'd be surprised how quickly corporate bean counters adopt it as their own definition of the function. "Who needs an entire department dedicated to keeping people happy when we're bleeding cash from every pore?" they ask.  "Let's fold most of it into marketing or HR and dump the rest."  

So no matter how you define it, I fear that PR as a function is doomed.  But there is hope.  

One of the most significant trends I uncovered in researching Secrets of the Marketing Masters is counter-intuitive -- four leading companies have put PR people in charge of marketing:  Jon Iwata at IBM, Beth Comstock at GE, Mich Mathews at Microsoft and Robert Mead at Aetna.  

I'm convinced it isn't a coincidence.  All four companies are icons within their respective industries. They have discovered that they need to sell their values, as well as their value, to win the trust of customers and all the other stakeholders who influence their operations.  That requires more than endless pitching, word-smithing, political correctness or knee-jerk do-gooding.  It requires the peripheral vision to see where the public's needs and values intersect with the company's competencies and interests.  And the business savvy to capitalize on it. 

PR hasn't taken over marketing at those companies; nor has marketing subsumed PR.  They've created something new that doesn't have a formal name yet, though they all call it something like "marketing and communications."  In that sense, PR as a stand-alone function, fighting for a seat at the table, is dead.  It is being replaced by a management philosophy focused on building enduring relationships.  The best of the old PR function's leaders -- those who already broke free of PR's popular caricature -- are taking those seats.

Buckle Up

Jim Stewart writes the Wall Street Journal's "Common Sense" investing column.  It's not the first place you'd look for marketing tips, but the folks at Gap should read today's column, assuming they have a subscription. Stewart discusses the stock of a retailer headquartered in Kearney, Nebraska, of all places.  Called "Buckle," it serves the notoriously fickle teenage market through 390 stores in 40 states. 

Since competitors like Abercrombie, American Eagle and The Gap are sucking wind, Stewart was initially skeptical that Buckle would be a good investment.  So he drafted his college-age niece and her sorority sisters to check out its stores.  

Their verdict: "The salespeople] are always really attentive and friendly and they always end up bringing you so many other cute jeans and shirts to try on ... and then you end up buying more than you planned on." "I shop there to buy Silver jeans. They are the only brand that fits me, and last many years. I also like the type of clothing they have, which is different from other places like AE [American Eagle Outfitters], Hollister, A&F [Abercrombie & Fitch]. ... I feel the clothes they sell are definitely worth the price."

From feedback like that, Stewart deduced Buckle's marketing strategy: fit, selection, and service make "medium to better-priced merchandise" a good value.  That may be why, in a market roiled by quirky fashion trends and reeling from the Great Recession, Buckle has racked up 21 consecutive months of double-digit sales gains.  It's stock is up and it's planning to expand into the Northeast.  Gap, are you listening?

Recession Marketing

Today's New York Times has an interesting article about all the food brands that are using a "value" message to attract consumers during the Great Recession.  It offers the May 18 issue of People magazine as Exhibit A.  In that issue, Oscar Meyer wieners claim to be “deli fresh, but without the deli counter price.” Lean Cuisine claims to be "good for you and good for your wallet." Chips Ahoy cookies team with Capri Sun juice drinks to assure consumers they needn't "snackrifice."  Elsewhere, Frito-Lay is adding 20 percent more chips to selected bags of Chitoos, Fritos and Tostitos, without raising the price.  Del Monte shows how canned fruits and vegetables can "stretch" food budgets.  And French's is offering larger jars of mustard at lower prices. Stretching dollars is a timeless message, but I wonder if it doesn't put brands on the wrong battlefield.  "Value" messages have a way of devolving into "price" claims. 

Frog Design's Tim Leberecht suggests marketers should create a deeper meaning for their brands.  His argument in a nutshell: "As brands face an unprecedented level of competition, transparency, and consumer empowerment on the social web, 'meaning' is becoming the new powerful currency that connects brands with their brandholders in the 'share economy.' "Lots of buzzwords there, but I think what he means is that marketing leaders need to reconnect their brands with their original purpose, i.e. how they help improve people's lives.  He expands on the idea in a provocative slideshow, which is available at  SlideShare.  His blog, iPlot, expands on the topic.

Flattened Expectations

Many marketers have been flattened by the Great Recession.  The leaders are already considering what the post-Recession world will be like.  

Both The Economist and the New York Times suggest that consumers are giving up their spendthrift ways in what augurs a permanent change.  It will take years for consumers to rebuild their nest eggs.  Banks will be stingier with credit for big purchases. Sociologists also detect changes in values and behavior.  “Many people no longer seem consumed by the desire to consumer,” says The Economist.  “Instead, they are planning to live within their means, and there has been a backlash against bling.” 

The Times suggests that people are squirreling away more of their paychecks because they’re “fearful of job losses and anxious over housing and stock declines.” In addition, The Economist says a soon-to-be-released Boston Consulting Group survey indicates the economic crisis has intensified consumers’ distrust of Big Business. 

 Bummer. What’s a marketer to do?

Here are five ideas, drawn from Secrets of the Marketing Masters: 

1. Develop products that fulfill people’s needs and appeal to their higher values. 
2. Anticipate how forces outside people’s perspective will shape their needs and values. 
3. Create consistent meaning along the full product experience. 
4. Build enduring relationships, not a stream of transactions.  
5. Demonstrate that you share your customers’ cares, aspirations and values. 

Canned

 Pepsi kicked off 2009 by introducing a new logo for its flagship soft drink to what can only charitably be called mixed reviews.   The new design was supposed to suggest a smile, but most people saw it as a rip-off of the logo Obama used in his presidential campaign. 

Then the company redesigned the packaging for its Tropicana orange juice, putting it into a carton that looked so generic consumers couldn't find it in the dairy case.   That was such a disaster, the new design had to be pulled. 

Shades of New Coke. 

The folks at Coca-Cola, on the other hand, are introducing a series of specially-designed cans to celebrate summer. Maybe they learned something back in 1985 because the new designs manage to be arresting and contemporary, yet classic and "real Coke," at the same time. Watch them fly off your grocer's shelves. 

The difference? 

Understanding your brand values and knowing how to communicate them viscerally.

 

Mo' Magination

GE (does anyone call it "General Electric" anymore?) has put its imagination to work on another hot button issue.  Having demonstrated how its interests intersect nicely with the environment's ("Green is green"), it is now targeting the cost, quality and availability of healthcare in a campaign -- dubbed "healthymagination" -- being announced via ads and webcast today. 

In researching Secrets of the Marketing Masters, I was struck that CMOs at three of the largest companies -- GE, Microsoft and IBM -- had backgrounds in public relations. None of the three people involved thought it was a coincidence.  Large, global companies have discovered that they need to sell their values, as well as their value, to win the trust of customers and all the other stakeholders who influence their operations.  It's more than political correctness or knee-jerk do-gooding.  It's developing the peripheral vision to see where the public's needs and values intersect with those of the company.  And the business savvy to capitalize on it.

That's what GE did with "ecomagination" and what it proposes to do with "healhtymagination."  If it backs up its new effort with the same aggressive goals, hard metrics, and concrete budgets, it could further define GE as a company that is redefining the meaning of the corporation.  

Nice or necessary?

What stuff do you really need?  That's the question the Pew Research Center asked a bunch of Americans and here's how they answered this year compared to 2006. As you might expect in the middle of the Great Recession, many people think they can do without the dishwasher or the microwave if push comes to shove. But two findings are a little surprising.

First, I'm amazed that people seem to value their landline telephone more than their cell phone (though Pew only asked about landline phones this year).  Watch for those numbers to reverse over time, as AT&T and Verizon have already realized. 

Second, note that cable and satellite TV are considered less necessary, i.e., more of a luxury, than high-speed Internet service.  Watch that gap grow over time. Young people, in particular, are getting used to watching their favorite TV shows online. But marketers shouldn't cope by throwing TV-like ads online.  People aren't as forgiving about interruptions online as they are on broadcast media.  Online is all about communities. Marketers need to earn the permission to join online communities by offering something of value.

Higher Purpose

Seth Godin has one of the sharpest minds in marketing.  His blog is an endless source of insight and practical advice.  I often wonder how he can churn out such a steady stream of pointed observations, while simultaneously writing a best-seller nearly every year. Not to mention regularly speaking to enthusiastic audiences.  

But then not every posting can be a home run.  Recently, he opined on "business models," a subject that became topical when Internet pioneers realized they didn't have one, as in how to turn eyeballs into money (or in business lingo, "monetize their traffic).  Step one, Godin advises, is figure out "what compelling reason exists for people to give you money? (or votes or donations)."  The other steps he lists are equally focused on a transaction, whether fending off competitors or acquiring prospects. All of which is well and good, as far as it goes.

But my own research with marketing leaders suggests they think more broadly than maximizing transactions.  They focus on building relationships, and that requires a different kind of thinking.   P&G's Jim Stengel, for example, encourages marketers to find their "higher purpose" -- that is, how they can improve people's lives.  Sounds high-falutin', but he says it was the secret behind P&G's success in everything from Pampers diapers to Pringle's potato chips. And it will be the topic of a book he's writing, titled Packaged Good, based on world-wide research he's conducting.  Based on the preview he gave me in the research for own book, Secrets of the Marketing Masters, I can't wait to read it.  Stengel says he wants to start a movement. Count me in.