LaughlinOutLoud

I was hurting in places a grown man is not supposed to hurt. Typing this, the muscles in my neck are beginning to spasm once again. A Buell Firebolt, while an outstanding motorcycle for afternoon blasts through the Kettles or multiple sessions at the track, made me realize why my disdain for cruisers might be short-sighted. Especially after a 1000 mile trip around Lake Michigan.

When it was suggested we go on a group ride to celebrate the 105th Anniversary of Harley-Davidson, I went along because I thought it would be great fun. But I also saw this as an opportunity to immerse myself in a part of motorcycling culture that I had very little experience with: Touring. This whole notion of “the open road” was a mystery to me. As someone who earns his keep in part because of my knowledge of the motorcycle marketplace, this was something that needed to be corrected immediately. Aches and pains be damned.

Advertising professionals are trained to use all available tools to gain a better understanding of consumers. Surveys, focus groups and questionnaires. Great stuff. But there’s something to be said for going in and becoming the person you want to reach. What does camaraderie among riders actually feel like? How long does it take to order a pizza online? Is it really all that easy to switch over your checking account from one bank to another? Clients love this kind of thing. They love when you go do the stuff you’re asking other people to do. By going through the motions, you’ll better understand what motivates consumers. You’ll get a sense for the subtle nuances of language, thought processes and behavior that are unique to each target. Insights you won’t gain by reading trade pubs or sifting through research. Little nuggets of truth that’ll help you connect with both the clients and their customers.

You’ll be surprised what you might discover. All it takes is a willingness to learn. And in my case, I learned there’s a whole world of riding beyond the twisties and the track.

A little vibration on my thigh signals the arrival of a text message.  The billboard up ahead is digital, sending out a different message every 8 seconds.  The elevator pitches me lunch options on the way to the lobby.  News, weather and sports are on 24/7. Whatever it is I may become interested in next, there’s a magazine, cable channel and three thousand blogs about it.

Despite the endless flow of information we are presented with everyday, it seems as if no one’s got the time to read.  Thank you for taking an exception here.  Item: Publishers are decrying the fact that young men simply don’t read.  Item:  More and more we’re becoming a multi-lingual nation where we no longer read the same language, and when we do, it is difficult for everyone to understand the same idioms.  The result: Clever headlines aimed at catching people’s attention are not getting the reaction they are looking for.

So I better choose my words carefully, here.  We all should.

We’re spewing more words to less effect than any time in our history.  An art director friend of mine suggested we should respond by simply spewing more pictures.  I think he’s right.

The successful marketers are emphasizing design throughout their brands.  Simplicity has become the essence of cool.

Martin Luther said, “The fewer the words, the better the prayer.”  Apparently, not a lot of people got the message.  The cathedrals of Europe sit empty.

Marketers better listen or their pews could sit empty too. That white noise you’re hearing out there is saying, “Keep it simple.”

Some friends of mine are selling their home. Everyone who sees the place raves about it. But there’s one caveat — the house has a spiral staircase and it’s freaking-out potential buyers.

“We love everything about your home, but we’re just not sure about the stairs,” they’ll say. So what’s the real problem with this staircase? Very simple — it’s different.

In the business world, “different” can be a good thing. Unfortunately, there are those companies who claim they want to be on the cutting edge and they want to do things in new ways, but when the moment of truth arrives they embrace change as if it were a wet dog. For them, proverbial is safe. It’s a cozy blanket. There’s a certain feel to the fabric and it has a familiar smell. If only they knew that to the rest of the world that security blankie is staaanky!

So every year the cycle continues, and organizations fork-out billions of dollars for stale, boring ideas. But fresh thinking can make a difference and deserves a second thought. Creativity knows no boundaries. It doesn’t matter if you’re in marketing, architecture, accounting, teaching, engineering… big ideas have been known to step out of the shadows and reveal themselves as a Toyota Prius or a Nike commercial, as HBO programming, an Apple Computer or an independent film.

Ironically, the advertising business is one of the biggest abusers. We’re afraid to show our clients the spiral staircase, despite the fact that it will do the job just as well and, most important, it’ll get noticed. We’re supposed to be all about fresh thinking, yet many of us sell clients on safe, boring concepts. Perhaps you’re they person who told your client that “Viva Viagra” will become the next “Where’s The Beef” lexicon? Or maybe you’re the genius who brought us the Go Daddy girl not once, but twice! Hey, thanks for the TWO blind dates with Glenn Close. Talk about a fatal attraction — I’m surprised the Go Daddy girl didn’t open the second Super Bowl spot with the words, “You won’t answer my calls, you change your number. I mean, I’m not gonna be ignored, Dan!”

Henry Ford once said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said a better horse.” Other icons of the business world – the Jack Welches, the Steve Jobs’, the Richard Bransons — they’d probably share a similar quote. My guess is that when they look down from on high and view the world they helped shape, they’d also tell us that the corporate ladder they struggled to climb over their respective careers was indeed a spiral staircase.

Chief Marketing Officers are under increasing pressure as the economy slows. They’re expected to produce instant results with some marketing fairy dust. The average tenure of a CMO is something south of two years. This churn suggests a lot of companies are creating change for its own sake. It seems that all of the media coverage of new media versus old and the collapse of mass media has led to an expectation that there’s a solution right around the corner that surely a new CMO will know all about.

Expecting CMO’s to predict future media habits is little like asking someone to read an eye chart with the letters on the back.

One of the more interesting people I’ve met, Ryan Matthews, makes a living as a marketing futurist. He calls himself the Black Monk, a moniker that justifies his sizable day rate all by itself. He’s self-confident enough to admit that predicting the future is inherently a fraudulent practice. Dark and mysterious is this future business.

Matthews points out that most predictions are the result of projecting the most recent history. The new, new things are harbingers of the next big thing. This is like imagining what’s down the road by looking at the rear view mirror.

Retailer, The Gap recently announced it was no longer using television advertising because it was no longer effective as a medium. We could easily use this as yet more evidence for the end of the 30-second spot. Yet, sister company, Old Navy, is running one of their best TV campaigns in years. Same company, two divergent brand strategies.

Maybe the reality is that marketing will always be best described by the famous John Wanamaker observation, “I know that only half of my advertising works. The trouble is I don’t know which half.”

The irony is that the work that is most measurable, that requiring immediate action, is also the least emotional, the least sticky over time. So at a time when marketers want to shake things up, it’s quite often the tried and true that produces the immediate result. It seems to me the smart brands are adopting new things incrementally and resisting the temptation to always be on deal.

2008 is the Chinese Year of the Rat. You have to give the lowly rat credit for at least one good characteristic. It’s a survivor. Appropriate if we’re thinking about how brands need to adapt in the future in order to avoid extermination in a tough global economy. While it would be smart to know more about the Chinese than what year it is, let’s also keep in mind it wasn’t long ago that everyone was conceding the future to the Japanese. While the Japanese continue to be best-in-class manufacturers and marketers, they’re certainly not steam-rolling the world the way futurists in the 80’s were predicting.

I’m convinced planning for the future is like managing a financial portfolio. Since no one can possibly know what’s going to happen, why not decide how much risk you can or should tolerate and plan accordingly? All too often companies want to blow up their marketing platforms and revolutionize things.

Yet the best brands seem to make the subtlest changes, they evolve slowly, steadily and ceaselessly.

Cottonelle toilet paper is out there using guerrilla marketing in addition to traditional media. Dove soap made wonderful use of publicity, traditional media and the web in its “real beauty” campaign. IBM is selling high-end, high technology business-to-business products like blade servers on mass media network television. These marketers know they have to try new things, yet they see the value of doing many of the same things in interesting, integrated ways.

When times get tough, it’s good to remember that the changes you make are no more important than the changes you resist.

Sudden, radical change is probably never a good idea. It takes a long time for people to catch on. So it’s probably much riskier to do something radical at precisely the time you’re most tempted to.

Mark Twain described himself as being opposed to change, but in favor of progress. I think that pretty well summarizes how one might want to look at the future. The fact is we’ll never need to change everything if we’re continually making progress with the things we’re doing. Good times or bad.

In the debate between new or old media, viral or traditional advertising, push or pull
marketing, PR or product placement, one question comes out of the clutter, virtual or real. Is
there an idea in there? What are the words in the word-of-mouth campaign going to say?
What grand design will drive the digital?

You have to admire an industry that keeps finding ways to invade people’s privacy with new
technologies. I’m sure you can’t wait for your phone to start offering you Viagra when you
can’t get it up, or Tums when you can’t keep it down.

Maybe that’s why the best marketing was never an interruption. It was always a discovery.
The message never confused itself with the medium.

If you and the brand you’re working for are going to survive the next technology shift, realize
that it’s your ideas that will get you through. Artificial intelligence suggests that ideas can be
programmed. Well, not to worry, so can you. And yours will be better, or we’re all headed for
CareerBuilder.com.

Ideas occur in four steps. (It’s the third and easiest step that’ll get you down.)

Step one. Know what it is you’re trying to have an idea about. Seems obvious, but it isn’t.
Clever headlines, visuals, or publicity stunts aren’t ideas if they’re just there to get noticed.
Mixing plaids will get you noticed, too. If you can state your brand strategy in one simple,
declarative statement, you’re on your way to having an idea.

Step two. Absorb everything there is to know about the brand. It’s competitors. It’s
consumers. It’s selling channel. This is a good time to read that segmentation study.

Step three. Incubate. This is the secret step few know about, appreciate, or have the patience
to wait through. Your brain needs time to sort the data dump from step two and actually work
on the problem. It can’t produce an idea without some time off. This phenomenon is
commonly known as writer’s block. It’s shortened more careers than Donald Trump. The
antidote is relaxing. Thinking about something else doesn’t just help, it’s required.

Step four. Epiphany. The cliché is that the idea hits you in the middle of the night, or in the
shower when you least expect it. It’s true. And it’s a proven neurological fact.

James Webb Young, a copywriter at J. Walter Thompson in the early 20th century, wrote a great
little book called “A Technique For Producing Ideas.” He makes the idea process simple and
understandable.

Creative people take these steps instinctively, but knowing how ideas get made should give
anyone the confidence to work on them. Anyone except the client’s spouse or children that is.
Years of study have shown that’s where ideas go to die.

The sooner the rest of us get engaged in ideas, the sooner consumers will get engaged with
our brands no matter where they encounter them.