FROG BLOG

I was in a retail store last night getting a prescription filled. Halloween was almost non-existent in the store with Christmas already looming large. The Halloween candy selection was all but replaced with marshmallow Christmas trees and candy canes. I don’t know about you but I can’t buy my trick-or-treat stash before October 30th if I want to actually give it away October 31st.

Even more frustrating is that I know Valentine’s Day will fill in behind the empty Christmas card pockets and candy shelves with Easter following closely behind.

Last year I tried to buy a new winter coat at the end of January. Couldn’t find one but did find a number of bathing suits to take me through the summer. Need a wool sweater buy it in August. Back to school supplies actually begin showing up in large retailers in July. Heaven forbid you want to buy the hottest toy for your child and not have to participate in retail’s version of Roller Derby.

The shopping public is tired. Our stress levels are at record heights and the early push on our shopping seasons just adds to the anxiousness and frustration. I would be willing to bet my Christmas budget that if a retailer actually kept to a reasonable calendar without creating a false sense of “being behind,” they would do very well. I hear more and more people talking about how draining going to a mall is. Everything is on overload and no longer can one just shop for fun.

I think one reason internet shopping continues to grow is because consumers can find what they want, when they want it without all the dazzling time tricks to make us all feel anxious that we aren’t completely done with Christmas by Thanksgiving.

Just one marketer’s observation!

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Seth Godin writing about what kills marketing creativity, identifies two primary culprits: Fear and Lack of Imagination. As part of his piece, Mr. Godin says:

“Basically, most people don’t believe something better can occur. They believe that the status quo is also the best they can do. So they don’t look. They don’t push. They don’t ask, “what else?” and “what now?” They settle.”

It is so easy for a marketing organization to fall into this trap…innovation often creates discomfort throughout a company. And when marketing looses it edge the rest of an organization will follow.

Recently I spoke about a study that divided Midwest manufacturers into Advanced, Progressive, Struggling and Disengaged categories based on their desire to incorporate new technology and systems into their workflow. The largest group - The Disengaged - have lost their vision for change and innovation. Even under extreme economic pressure they fall into the trap Mr. Godin describes so well.

How to escape?

Effective marketing connects your entire company to the marketplace. Marketers with Vision often cause discomfort when they identify weaknesses that need to be addressed, trends that indicate trouble, customer problems that need resolution or radical directions that may turn your entire business model on its head.

When a marketer gives into fear and suffers from a lack of imagination, the discomfort stops…and unfortunatley a critical voice for innovation in your organization is silenced.

Seth Godin’s blog on this subject is at: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/10/the_two_things_.html

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Did you know there is a “National Take Back Your Time Day?” And, according to one business pundit, Time Deficit Disorder (TDD) keeps potential customers from having time to read their direct mail or try new products.

Breaking through the clutter in the marketplace has always been an issue. Potential customers are inundated with new products, new services and new ideas all vying for their time and dollars. This however is the first time I have heard a marketer blame the customer for not participating.

This perspective certainly explains a number of tv ads running these days. Watching television sometimes feels like I am in a room with 20 5-year olds all trying to get my attention by screaming loudest or acting silliest.

Marketers you need to remember that potential customers probably aren’t responding because they don’t feel like you are talking to them. It is about meeting a need in the most beneficial way.

This isn’t as easy as being funny or loud — but it will go a long way toward having customers without TDD!

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Now that summer hours are over and the snow has started to fly (at least here in Chicago) I think it is time for marketing departments to try to infuse Friday with excitement and creativity. (Actually all departments should but I will talk to the marketing team for now.)

Plan regular “events” to help keep ideas flowing and to go into the weekend with seeds planted in the mind of your team. Keep them fun and high-energy. They shouldn’t be “problem-solving sessions” but stretching out to new and interesting thoughts. How about spending an hour with a spread of Jumbo Shrimp, Oven-Fried Chicken, and a 12-oz pound cake and see how many oxymorons your team can identify. Then take 10 randomly and see if you can figure out how each one applies to your business. Every great idea starts somewhere, maybe they have been hiding in the quiet of the last afternoon of the week!

Have a great weekend.

p.s. for some help on the oxymorons you can go to www.oxymorons.info or www.oxymoronlist.com

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Best new job advice I ever received: Write down everything you are asked to do that appears to be stupid, inefficient, or unproductive. Check the list in 6 months. Are you now mindlessly repeating those stupid, inefficient and unproductive tasks with gusto?

Why do such tasks live on? Momentum is built into your company’s reward system and human nature. The following three rules demonstrate what I mean.

Rule 1: Do it the way it’s always been done and it will get done while causing X amount of frustration over and over again. (You get rewarded for getting it done, over and over again)

Rule 2: Change the way it’s always been done and you will cause 10 times X frustration once, while reducing or eliminating the repetitive problem long term. (You get rewarded for innovating – Once.)

Rule 3: People rapidly adapt to small frustrations, forgetting they are even there.

If you have fallen into the ‘that’s just the way it is’ mindset, it is more difficult to ferret out innovations that improve delivery of your brand promise. A That’s Stupid List helps remind you of the little things that seemed frustrating, and if fixed could add up to a big competitive advantage.

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I stopped by Dr. Ellen Weber’s blog yesterday (www.brainbasedbusiness.com) and joined her discussion on “rewarding the high-performance mind.” A quote from her blog caught my attention as I realized she nailed one of the key challenges of today’s business world:

“Most organizations knock out exuberance and annihilate curiosity, which is the heartbeat of talent.” (Dr. Ellen Weber, www.brainbasedbusiness.com)

Innovation and creativity follow from “exuberance and…curiosity.” You cannot create new revenue streams, new products, new businesses, new processes (you get the idea) from the same old, same old. And, if the company culture (also known as senior management) is not willing to reward high-performance thinking, eventually mediocrity takes over.

I know that it is easier to not upset the apple cart by encouraging employees to be innovative. I have actually had managers say to me that the cost of a bad idea is too high to encourage “out of the box” thinking.

Many who say they want innovative programs don’t really. As I said in my response to Dr. Weber, some clients say they “want” innovative programs but the true statement should be “we want innovative and creative as long as it doesn’t change the way we do business because it would be too much to change and you (the consultant) can do it without any internal resources.”
It is a challenge to help a motivated senior management team to change…it is impossible to change a team that isn’t willing to “do the work” required to help the organization really change.

To be a great business, you need great people. And to have great people, they have to feel like they can make a difference. They have to feel valued and rewarded; and they have to feel safe in order to step beyond the known into “what could be.”

I encourage all of us in management to ask ourselves if we have created the kind of environment our staff is excited to be a part of and, if not, why not.

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Effective marketing influences every aspect of your business, not just communication or awareness. However, this is not a command relationship — as in, “We the marketing gods declare the focus group shows we must deliver X.” Marketing tyranny ends with the communication of compelling, yet undeliverable promises that damage brand equity.

To avoid tyranny (and its opposite - weeniedom), marketing must act as the gas to energize your company’s efforts to build competitive advantage. From the marketers viewpoint, this energizing creative environment is driven by three initiatives:

1. Drive Interconnected Measurement: As corporate objectives are broken down into department and individual objectives they are reinterpreted within the confines of a given process. Usually this means that across interdependent departments it is difficult to match goal to goal, creating difficulties in communication and support.
2. Facilitate Meaningful Dialog: Communication is no longer a push vehicle driven by traditional collateral, advertising and PR. Marketing must facilitate clear, consistent, meaningful dialog between all levels of your organization and your market.
3. Establish Strategies For Competitive Advantage: Marketing is often asked to translate a product attribute into a meaningful communication point. This needs to be a two-way street. Establish clear strategies that pressure all corporate processes to meet, exceed and reinforce your brand image and promise.

Each of these initiatives requires a closer relationship between marketing professionals and other departments within your organization. With coordinated effort these initiatives revitalize competitive thinking — helping drive communications, as well as your product and process development, towards distinct competitive advantage.

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Charged with defining and communicating unique product attributes and critical elements of competitive advantage, marketing departments often fork in two directions - Marketing Tyrant or Marketing Weenie.

Why do those on the marketing bus turn one way or the other? They are usually driven by the frustration of being responsible for communicating advantage, but not having control over the existence of that advantage.

The Marketing Tyrant - “Make the focus group happy or off with your head!” Never a pretty picture, the marketing tyrant behaves as if complete control is theirs (whether in the organizational chart or not). This can lead to the communication of compelling, yet undeliverable, promises that damage brand credibility. It can also drive development that follow, rather than lead, customer behavior. (If your customer has all the answers they probably don’t need you!)

The Marketing Weennie - “Our product is a commodityeeee, we’re not doing anything uniiiiiique. Do something unique, pleeeeeeeeeese.” Without any feeling of control over product the Marketing Wiennie is left to whine and take orders. This ends with communication that is un-inspiring, wordy and lacks any impact on brand equity.

There is a third way, where marketing feels empowered to effect product and energizes the complete corporation to innovate in ways meaningful to your customers - The Marketing Persuader.

The Marketing Persuader works to drive every process in your organization towards meaningful competitive advantage by following three core initiatives, which I will talk about Monday.

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Wow! It is already October. Hard to believe 2006 is winding down. For all businesses the end of our fiscal year means turning your focus on the next year’s opportunities and challenges.

Here are a couple of thoughts to help with this process:

1. If Marketing is responsible for writing the plan, who else is at the table? If you don’t have all of your business represented you are missing important insight. Remember marketing is about bringing all the spokes of the wheel together to present a solid product/service to your marketplace.
2. Remember you can’t create a brand only through messaging and creativity. A brand is developed over time by the complete relationship between customer and company. Too many businesses talk about “strengthening their brands” without ever looking at all of the pieces of the business. Xerox’s brand today comes from years of outstanding relationships, product and service to the market. If you need a “bad” example of putting the brand before the product think about “pets.com”
3. Don’t forget to look for trends, opportunities and other information from beyond your market boundaries. What is influencing other industries and how might that affect yours?
4. Don’t write next year’s plan without understanding how this year’s is performing. And remember, this year is still underway!
5. Bring your customers to the table to help understand their perspective, but remember, customers do not have a unbiased perspective. It is their biases you need to understand the most!
6. Build your budget off your plan starting at zero every year. A zero-based budget forces a business to ask hard questions and question hard-wired assumptions. There should be no sacred programs!
7. As a corollary to #5, remember great programs need time to find their momentum. You can’t judge everything on short-term performance.
8. Your marketing plan should address both your internal key influencers (employees) and your external key influencers (shareholders, media, industry execs, etc.)
9. Make sure you have measures identified along with action plans and accountabilities to ensure your plans are implemented. Also build in regular review for mid-year corrections when necessary.
10. Have fun — celebrate your successes and your failures because it takes both to conquer your market.

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