Vy Blog

Two very good posts that I recommend reading right now

Michael Arrington: Apple's Only Unfair Advantage: Their Products Rock

Hugh MacLeod: Random Thoughts On Being An Entrepreneur

Excellent both.

I think Kevin Murphy is on to us

Kevin Murphy is bureau chief for Computerwire in San Francisco.  (Disclosure: He's covered the industry I'm currently involved in.)  He knows his crap and has a ferocious wit, as you'll see.

He writes a post today about "How to Blag an Interview" that will look not only familiar, but exactly familiar to, oh, about every single PR agency operative of the most recent generations.  In my opinion, it should be required reading for the next several to follow -- it shows how staid, predictable and all-too-full-of-pretense briefings have become.

This is uncomfortable to me as well because I've conducted briefings like this one.  Many times.  But I hope my thinking has evolved now to the point I can find my way clear to do something more valuable for both sides involved.

What would be better?  How about a conversation?  One where there's genuine listening going on, where everyone in the room asks smart questions about what's interesting to the other?  How about some brainstorming on what the journalist wants to cover, and where he can find some useful resources? 

And here's a barn-burner: How about doing this before you ever launch a product?

Manifestos continue

All of these are good.

This one is for attorneys, but could well apply to PR firms.

Rebranding your region

I appreciate John Wagner's pointer to this story about an ad exec in Mississippi (hereafter: "Miss") who got tired of everyone thinking they were still wearing pointed hats, and is doing something to show the treasures of his state.

This is a growing trend that I've written about before: Kansas here, Washington here, New Jersey here.  I personally think many of the efforts are wildly off the mark.

Why?  Because they're more superficial than not.  Can't you see some chamber of commerce suits and some visitors association people in a meeting room, saying to each other: "A new tagline will make all the difference."  And they come up with badly-conceived ideas like "Kansas. As Big As You Think."

The problem, of course, is that there's nothing new and interesting about Kansas, or very many other places.  Until there is, there's no reason for anyone to change their behavior (that is, to pick up and travel to and spend money in Kansas, which is the desired outcome).

There's a difference in the efforts most states make, and in at least elements of the Miss effort.  Most try to use words only to change the way you think and influence your behavior.  Others use words to show you something different that changes the way you think.  One is evidence-based, others are not.  One is authentic, others are not.

Now, which is more effective?  There always are some schmoes who will lap up the words and act on them, but that number is shrinking fast as consumers' capabilities -- namely to discern relevant information and make choices -- continue to grow.

The Miss executive is at least going in the right direction by revealing the state's natural beauty, not trying to gloss over its troubled racial past, and inviting a look at its heritage.  (For the record, Mississippi is in fact a beautiful state -- I've been there several times.)  It'll be interesting to see about results.

MORE:  The hits keep coming from John.  He applies the same reasoning to Wal-Mart here.  Well done sir.

Manifestos in 500 words or less

These are great reading.

How to succeed in 2007

I usually wish I had more time for reading for ideas -- you know, just emptying your mind and letting ideas free form around what you read in a magazine, for example.  The facts are, however, that a) I don't usually have that kind of time, and b) while I don't mean to be needlessly critical, I don't find a lot of good raw material to use in most media nowadays.

However comma I was just flipping through the December edition of Business 2.0, where there's a section titled (not "entitled") "How To Succeed In 2007," and they have various advice from a lot of people you know of.  I don't buy all of it, but the one that really jumped out at me was this cut from Jeff Hicks, president of Crispin Porter & Bogusky (emphases mine):

There are three things I think about the most when it comes to making it as a marketer these days.  The first one is there's no amount of money I can pay to get my commercial in front of you, because you can powerfully edit what you spend time with.  So my job as a marketer is no longer to interrupt, but to produce content that is so relevant, interesting, entertaining, and involving that my best consumers won't want to live without it.  The second thing is understanding that instead of brochures and trade shows, marketing now really begins with the product.  Great companies are investing a lot of time and attention into trying to make products that market themselves.  The last piece is that user-generated content has made it possible for consumers to own your brand, and if they don't, you're not doing your job.  The brands that are adopted, blogged about, and parodied the most are the ones that are going to win because they're involved in the evolution of pop culture.  If you're scared to have your brand played with, you're going to be left behind.

More on markets without marketing

Doc Searls has an ongoing thread about marketing and conversations.  Of course he does -- he's the Cluetrain guy.

There's a very good exchange here between Doc and Joe Andrieu that is worth reading in its entirety, including the further exchange in the comments section.  A couple of relevant points:

• [But] when you do have a market, it pays to try to understand the market as a medium for trends so that you can better predict the future and have more useful and productive conversations with people in that market.
• And without understanding the market as an aggregate, you cannot create a viable brand, because doing so creates either something solipsistically suited perfectly to your own internal delusions or designed for just one customer.
• What I think we all really want are markets without stupid marketers and bad marketing. Now that’s a noble goal, but I don’t expect we’ll see it any time soon. Luckily, we are seeing increasing velocity in the marketplace, and that at least, should help weed out the marketers who can’t keep up.
• [The second] is to deal with the fact that markets are no longer under the command and control of marketing. Even the brilliant Steve Jobs, for all his and Apple’s success with Macs, iPods and Apple Stores, can’t keep customers inside the company’s walled garden, or control the flow of information about what’s right and wrong about the company’s products. Apple is getting a hard lesson right now on that very subject, with the MacBook shutdown problem.
• Branding and marketing must change its role from a drum major to a jazz band leader. Micromanaging every touchpoint in the marketplace is both Orwellian and Sisyphean, opressive and impossible. Stop doing it.

It's never easy

I don't mean that to be fatalistic.  What I mean is what's worth having is not easy to get.

I hate to admit it probably as much as you do, but your father was right -- there are no shortcuts when it comes to getting something done right.  And yes, folks, it applies to marketing, maybe more than usual.

There is good reading lately on this subject:

Andy Woolard says clients sometimes want copycat tactics -- whatever they are -- that they figure built a brand they have come to love.  His point, and a good one, is that there's no cookie-cutter approach, obviously.  What great brands have done is create something valuable and find a new and appealing way to reveal it.  No shortcut there.

Ever since the viral marketing jag took hold, everyone wants to try it.  Good idea -- when it works, it really works.  Little carries more credibility than peer-to-peer referral (which is marketingspeak for "telling your friends").  John Wagner posted a couple of weeks ago (I'm delinquent) about not forcing word of mouth.  You can't force it.  You can prod it along, but if you don't have anything real, it'll die on the vine.  No shortcut there, either.

Kami Huyse advocates doing your homework in advance by learning about the trends coming in PR.  Very smart.  If you're going to be considered a competent and leading practitioner, you have to spend time knowing what's coming.   

(Aside: I hated using the word "leading" there because I can't stand reading all the press releases that include "a leading provider of...".  Once I wrote, and now can't find, a frustration-fueled buzzword-crammed press release about the chicken crossing the road.  It started something like: "Pavement Solutions, a leading provider of revolutionary, fully scalable and enterprise-adaptive poultry-traversing platforms, today announced yet another strategic alliance with gallus domesticus, culminating in the successful and ground-breaking breaching of the infrastructure serving the southern tier of Goat City."  I wish I could find it.

Marketing right: Shakespeare's Pizza

My brother sent me a couple of funny tent cards from Shakespeare's Pizza in Columbia, Mo.  They're great -- one is a food pyramid with fruits, veggies and lean meat at the top, with 15-83 servings a day of pizza and Parmesan documented wide across the bottom.  They're known for these cards, which are clever without being over-clever.

Besides having great pizza (and they do), they have an irreverent, entertaining way about doing their business.  They amuse themselves, obviously, and thus amuse their customers.  Hell of a way to do business.

Example:

THE MISSION STATEMENT OF SHAKESPEARE'S PIZZA:

It's the pizza, stupid. And maybe the beer. 
Everything else can go fly. 
Have a good time doing it, just wash your hands before and after.

Want to laugh and learn something about good marketing.  Check out their site.

Friday roundup

You get your head back under water, and it gets harder to breathe.

I miss discussions on the issues of marketing and PR.  I think there are a couple of reasons for this --

1. I'm busy.  (But that's just me.)
2. There's not a whole hell of a lot to write about at the moment.

So here's some head gravel:

Journalism:  Mike Arrington links to a strong post from Philip Kaplan about his recent experience with journalists covering a CEO change at the company he founded.  As is my general rule, I'm not going to slam journalists, but I will point out there's good and bad in everything, including that profession.  Is it just human nature for a story to be tricked up to heighten interest?  Maybe that's not even relevant -- I've been on the receiving end of that Kaplan experienced and it's unpleasant.  If you're a PR practitioner, it's a good reminder of the fact that you're not usually in any kind of control of your story.

PR and spinach:  Anytime there's a crisis of some kind, I'm always a little amused, if not annoyed, at its description as a PR problem.  Let's sweep that out of the way -- what this industry has is a problem (and a temporary one at that, one would assume) with its product.  It's not safe at the moment.  No one wants to buy it anyway.  Before long, it will get figured out and it will be safe to buy, and we'll start eating it again.

The challenge between now and then is the one of restoring trust.  What do you communicate, to whom, and how, to restore trust in the product and help induce purchasing of the product?  That's what I would want to focus on.  For plain-spoken wisdom on this, smarter than what you just read here, see John Wagner.

Fitness:  My summer fitness goals had to do with getting in shape for triathlon events.  It worked -- I'm in good aerobic condition.  However, thanks to a week of barbecue and throwed rolls in the midwest in August, I'm not particularly, uh, svelte.

I'm much more motivated to work for results when I have a goal to aim for.  So, my wife and I just learned we have an opportunity for a beach trip in January -- there's the new goal, thank you.  This time I'm going to take some time to learn about nutrition, about which I know little, and focus that along with a revamped workout.  I'd like to see what kind of shape I can really get into. 

Ollabelle:  Have you heard this group?  Roots-influenced music that is hard to categorize.  Some bluegrass, some folk, some rock, some gospel, some country.  Really great harmonies.  They're second album, Riverside Battle Songs, is well put together.

One other thing, please:  When you could not care less about something, don't say you could care less.  If you could care less, then you actualy could care less, not that you could not.  I'm begging you.