Perspective

So. About not posting in forever. Sorry about that, but I was busy with a new job with crazy hours, and taking care of my pregnant wife. It's a girl, by the way, born on August 5th. Thanks, and you're welcome for all the "aww" and "congrats" and such that are undoubtedly in your mind at the moment.

Anyhow, I got to thinkin'. Dangerous, I know...me and thinking have a volatile relationship.

I've already started to see MANY things change in the past five days, I wonder what else might change. One big thing that I'm sure will change with the addition of a child to my life is my perspective. I'm no longer 31 year old married guy only looking for things for ME, I'm gonna have to start watching baby tv and listening to music for kids and such. Its undoubtedly going to change the way I see MANY things.

I'm okay with it. Marketing and its surroundings are ever changing, and so is life. It kinda fits together, in its own way.

The Marketing Year

So...its 2010. Does anyone really care? I don't. Did anything change when the date went from 12/31/2009 to 1/1/2010? Other than the date, not really. I'm still a thirty year old married male with a degree in marketing and a retail job. My wife is still my wife, and so on. I woke up the morning of 1/1/10 and went right back to work, I didn't have the day off.

So if you're expecting a retrospective on 2009 based on the title of this post, you'll be dissapointed, because that's not what this is. 2009 was good to me, and that's all there is to it.

I don't really understand the whole restarting everything on New Years Eve/Day bit. Why do we do that? Most fiscal years aren't calendar years. Most birthdays are not on those two days - IMHO, a year begins and ends on your birth date. There is an actual marked transition there, as tied into the calendar as it is.

So what the hell is a marketing year? Its nothing, its an arbitrary term I just made up. There really is no marketing year. Marketing is measured by projects, campaigns, promotions, and a whole host of other things, many only loosely tied into date of any sort.

That's the way I choose to live my life. Birthdays and anniversaries are important dates to remember, because they actually symbolize passage of time in a relevant way to that person.

What's marketing got to do with it? Everything and nothing, both at once. Marketing is what I do, so its obviously tied into my life and its evolution and creation. But marketing has nothing to do with what date it is, or what time it is.

If you get all excited by the new year thing, good for you, that's great. But if you see me celebrating wildly on some other day, I may have just made a useful or realistic transition, on my own terms, and with my own skills and abilities. I didn't do it because everyone else did, I did it because it was time for it, and it felt right.

So go ahead, be one of those people who tries through February, and fails in March. Come see me in April, or July, September or December, I'll still be at it and kicking ass...because I want to be, not because of some weird tradition nobody really knows anything about.

So why'd you make your resolutions? What do you want to accomplish? Why didn't you do it before? Why now?

The Tipping Point vs Jumping The Shark

The Tipping Point, and Jumping The Shark. Gotta love pop culture, don't you. Explaining why things turn good or go bad is the oldest thing in the book, but its often such an interesting topic. I find The Tipping Point to be Malcolm Gladwell's best work, a thought that I know many people share. Plus, who doesn't jokingly know the exact moment when their favorite tv show or movie series jumped the shark?

The interesting thing is that as different as these ideas are, they're both the same. They're both created to show the exact point when a specific instance happens. Yeah, Tipping Point is a good instance, and for the most part Jumping The Shark is a bad instance, but they really do come about the same way. Often times, these two things can be indentical, or very close in timing. Some people have said that they are one in the same - the instant something tips and becomes popular, it has jumped the shark, and will never be better than it was previous to that moment.

The thing that links these two ideas is unpredictability. The examples given in The Tipping Point are some of the most random things I have ever seen, and there is no way I could have, or just about anyone could have predicted it. Jumping The Shark is rather unpredictable as well. Maybe you can see it coming, for instance if your television show hired Ted McGinley, but I digress.

Unpredictability. Its the bane of many a businessman's existence. How else can you explain the Pet Rock? Beanie Babies? Real Men Of Genius? Reality Television? Its a wonder all people who work in marketing or advertising haven't gone insane by now!

To do this kind of thing, you need to thrive on the unpredictable. Take everything you do as the biggest damn thing in the world, because you know what? It might be. You won't know unless you go for it.

Thanks for reading!

Why'd you name it that?

What's in a name? Everything. But sometimes nothing.

Microsoft. Caesar's Palace. Escaping Mediocrity. Burger King. Staples.

Hear or see those names, you know what they are, you know their success, you know their quality. Imagine any of them with a different name. Would they be doing as well? Would they even be? What if Bill Gates was drunk one early day when microsoft was young, and he changed the name to something else....GatesCo for example.

Would that company be here today in the same position? Probably not. But maybe, it's possible that a product is good enough to overcome a bad name.

I've been thinking a lot about names. As things change at The Marketing Mark, the name could be one of them. Will that destroy what I have already built? I don't know. Will it propel me into new heights and beyond? I don't know.

Change is scary, isn't it. Hmmm...that sounds familiar...

How do you know when the fear is worth it?


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

When To Change Everything Or Nothing

Sometimes a blog runs its course. Sometimes a marketing campaign runs too long. Occasionally an individual advertisement dissapears too quickly. We've all seen it happen, maybe even been part of it. Why does this happen?

Any ideas?

Dumb luck? Fickle audience? Bad product?

Probably, but generally no.

Much like in sales, everything has a break even point. Stop too early, and you miss it. Stop too late, and you run the risk of losing it all. Finding that point is a skill that not very many people have, and even those people aren't always perfect at finding it. For every time the break even point is hit, and you cut and run at the right time, there are untold numbers of people who stayed too long, or left too early.

The thing about it is, there's no generalization on how to find the spot. It could be years, months, weeks, days, hours, or any other time measurement. A blog could reach that point in three years, whereas a commercial may hit it within weeks or months, and that's with a quality product. The break even point for a subpar idea is likely to be even shorter.

What break even points have you come across?

Thanks for reading!!

Unbroken Chain

This post's title shares its title with a great song by Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead. Hopefully this post will not be as out there as a 69 Dark Star...

Anyhow - the title fits a lot of things, but being a marketing geek, I see an unbroken chain as a perfect metaphor for a company that has every department working all at once, and in the same mindset - and creating a product and marketing plan that blow the public away.


Something that enters pop culture, or alters the way future ads are done would be a great unbroken chain...comment about your favorites...

Thanks for reading!!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Growing Social Media Presence By Not Using It

I've been interviewing a lot of places lately, and I know a lot of people working in corporate marketing positions of all kinds.

Many of these people, and some of the places I have interviewed at, have fairly aggressive blocking software on the employee work computers. This I understand, as you need to be able to make sure your employees are actually doing their work, and not farting around on Google or checking their fantasy teams, etc.

But the new trend seems to be blocking social networking sites. Yes, these can be addicting to some types of people, so in a way, I can understand it. But on the other hand, the people addicted to social media are usually the ones USING IT CORRECTLY. They're constantly updating their status on FaceBook, leaving comments on friend's pages, and probably updating Twitter along the way.

To my surprise, many of the companies who are claiming to be all about social media, or are attempting to grow their online presence and connect with people are blocking their employees, and that includes everyone from sales and marketing to the president,etc from using social media on the clock. Yeah, some of them have a person who sits and does update Twitter or put news on their Facebook fan pages...they damn well better have that person.

But is that one person really enough? Not when that person has no clue what they are doing. It seems like they just take someone from the marketing department and say "You're the Twitter person now. You also maintain our FaceBook fans page" and just let them do it, no matter how good or bad they may be at it.

You can learn social media as you go along, and in fact, that's pretty much how most of us have done so...but someone like me who doesn't have a corporate reputation behind him can fuck something up and be able to fix it and leave it behind...but if someone screws up the social media reputation of a major company in ANY industry, its possible that they may NEVER recover. They may hit the jackpot like Skittles, and get tons of publicity - or it could fizzle out and pop with a whimper like the dot com bubble back a few short years ago.

Do what you have to do to avoid the latest trend of developing social media by ignoring it. Social media is not the pet rock...social media is the hula hoop, the frisbee, the yo yo. Something that comes in as a fad, but rather than going away in spectacular fashion, it stays around, and will always be there. Maybe a different form sometime down the line, but still there.

Where do you work, and what is their social media policy?

Is Fake Word Of Mouth Still Word Of Mouth?

I was reading a book about word of mouth the other day, and there was a chapter about underground/guerilla style marketing and how its no longer as effective as it was. The big reason is because there are mainstream marketing companies designing faux underground campaigns that use paid scripted actors who shill products in situations that seem more organic, like they happened naturally.

Is this really the death of word of mouth? I don't think so. No matter how it starts, word of mouth is word of mouth. Just because it may have been originated by an actor memorizing a script, instead of a random happenstance, the resulting communications by those who were affected is still word of mouth. Its still organically grown as time goes on, whether it started accidentally or on purpose.

Yeah, its probably not what some of the first word of mouth people had in mind, but in marketing and related things, I don't think there's ANYTHING that has evolved exactly the way that the originators have planned. Sometimes the natural evolution of a strategy is completely against the original thought, but it still works.

As much as people who utilize underground tactics dislike it, things that happen in the underground that work very well, often are adopted by the mainstream. It happens in music, it happens in art, and it happens in business. It doesn't mean that the tactic no longer works, it just means it will probably be changed a little bit to make it more accessible.

Instant Marketing - Just Add Water...Oops, Twitter.

This should come as no surprise to anyone who reads this blog, since chances are that you found out about it via Twitter to begin with...

But, Twitter has and continues to show itself to be a trendsetter in marketing. Not the service itself, but the users. Thanks to the trending topics slot now in everyone's sidebar by default on the web based client, certain trends can be tracked. In recent times, obviously Michael Jackson, Iran, AT&T, and several other topics have come, stayed and gone, and maybe come again. But the major stuff isn't what I'm actually talking about.

Every once in a while, you get something completely random. Sometimes a meme will crack the list, or sometimes a pro athlete, or whatever. They don't always stay for very long, such is the nature of motion, and a fickle public.

But, if you were good enough about crafting the right kind of message with your 140 characters, imagine the number of people who would possibly see your name, your product, your whatever. Even if you were only on the list for a short time, a rediculous amount of people would possibly see your topic.

I'm definitely not calling for tweets being advertising or anything like that, NOBODY wants that. EVER. What I mean, is there are larger companies (Zappos, Ford, etc) who have enough clout to wrangle a trending topic if they do something big. What's stopping you from crafting something good enough to be picked up by Robert Scoble, or Chris Brogan, or Leo Laporte, guys who have tremendous reach in the Twitter sphere? NOTHING. You just have to do it. If you get the right people or enough people talking, just imagine the possibilities...

What do you see?

Thanks for reading.

Planned Obsolescense Is Not A Marketing Technique!

I've never really been inspired to write a blog entry so quickly after I hear something, but the newly released info on the new iPhone has inspired the heck out of me.

When I was in computer sales, I really was at a disadvantage - I knew too much. I knew that the printer that I sold that customer wouldn't be around in a couple years and stuff would have changed so much they would need to buy another one. I knew that the laptop that I sold the other customer would be in need of several upgrades, both internal and external within the next year or so. Mind you, I'm not stupid, I didn't turn any customers away, but I was honest with them, and many of them appreciated it.

What's that got to do with the iPhone? Technically, nothing. But a lot, at the same time. Its nothing in relation to the products themselves, even though an iphone is pretty much a computer in itself.

I hate that companies will make a product, knowing full well that within 6 months to a year or so, they'll be putting out another one that's bigger, smaller, faster, lighter, whatever, as long as its better. I hate that they'll make a huge deal out of it, like they made some sort of gigantor discovery that made the new one necessary. Its like you're calling your current customers suckers for daring to buy your product. "hey, remember that cool thingy you paid $499 for six months ago? You can now get it for $99, and this new one that's so much better than yours is now $399!!!! Don't you want to buy it? You know you do! Come buy it!!"

And people do. Just like people pay all the overcharges for concert tickets, and every other thing that the market will put out.

Look - I'm all for making money, shit, its what I do, I'm in sales. But the joy over making something new so quickly after making it in the first place has got to go. I'm all for letting me know that this or that product now does something else, or does what it did but better. But its not worth a major event.

I'm not going to tell you not to buy anything new, because that's not my point, and I'm not here to tell you what to do. Unless I end up working for AT&T, Cingular, or Apple, I'm not gonna fall for it. If you want to buy the new one, cool, do that. If you want to buy the new one and you just got the last one, just think about it, that's all.

Think.

Comment, too...I like comments.

The Many Angles Of Truth

How is it that two companies that sell the same product can tell you the exact opposite things, and still both be telling the truth?

They can't...but they also can, often both at the same time.

This all goes along with a two part blog series I wrote on Blellow, about your personal story. Products have a story too. Everything in the business world has a story. Otherwise it wouldn't be where it is.

Many products or services can do more than one thing. I'd wager that nearly every single one can, actually. The thing is, most of them only tell you what they want you to know. Is that dishonest? No, not really - they're not lying (well, some might be, but thats a whole separate post for another time) and they want you to use their product for their intended purpose. Their intended purpose may be vastly different from some other product that does some or most of the same thing, but if the people behind it have different ideas on what you should do with it, they'll present different stories. They're both telling you the truth; but its the truth they want you to hear, not necessarily the full truth.

Some people would say that is dishonest. I wouldn't. Why shouldn't I be able to tell you that my product, while similar to yours, does some different things? Why would I put out a product that does the same stuff as someone else and say exactly that? I wouldn't - because I would fail, damn near immediately.

From a business perspecive, telling you what someone wants you to know is the way that it's done. Some people on the outside don't like it, and do think of it as misleading or distrustful, but many of them can't really tell you a coherent reason why they don't like it.

Most of what seems to be the problem is the whole concept of "story" because when people hear story, they immediately jump to fiction. Your story within business MUST NOT be fiction, otherwise you're going to be found out, and you'll be done. Probably out a lot of money, too.

Crafting your story, while still telling the truth and not being misleading isn't exactly easy. What are some of your favorite product stories? What are some of your favorite product stories that differentiate very similar products?

Thanks for reading...

Advertising within java/flash games

No, not product placement, that would be a huge waste of time. Nobody needs to see the Bloons monkey drinking a Coca Cola, or the tilty motorcycle actually be a Harley Davidson. I mean companies actually producing java games with their stuff in them.

I know a while back that Nabisco did a whole lot of childrens' style games with very little going on in any of them, and a large amount of product placement. This is a really unexplored thing, I believe. We're so concerned with viral videos, and getting our customer service departments on Twitter, that something like this is being left behind, for the most part.

With the one possible exception of Comedy Central, I suppose. Take a look at their website sometime. If you're at all familiar with any of their programming beyond the standup comedy specials, you will recognize a ton of stuff if you wander into their game section of their website.

Small companies...find a game developer that can do a java/flash game for you....even something as simple as a choose your own adventure or a madlib, if done well will bring you lots of traffic, and people will have fun, and remember you.

Thanks for reading...

Give Me Back My Five Bucks

Give Me Back My Five Bucks


I've just entered a contest to win either 1000 business cards or 500 brochures, the details are on this blog post on Give Me Back My Five Bucks, a great blog with some interesting readers.

You readers of mine don't actually get to help me win the contest, but I'll bet any one of you wouldn't mind winning, either. Go on over and check out the contest....tell them I sent you. :)

Trust Only In Yourself

Especially in freelance work.

But, in general as well. Don't take someone's word over yours about something you've created just because they're more experienced than you, or a higher level than you, or any reason. If you have to strike out on your own, then do it, if its feasible. You are the one that knows what's best for you, what's best for your projects, and so on.

You are responsible for what goes out with your name on it, not anyone else...YOU. If you weren't, your name wouldn't be on the project. If you aren't happy with it, nobody is. Be prepared to defend yourself, even over the smallest things if necessary. If you develop a reputation as a pushover, you'll never make it where you want to make it to. You've got to be the one that's comfortable at the plate if you're going to get anywhere.

If this seems like obvious advice, it is. But so many people overlook the obvious, looking for the little things.

Thanks for reading!

No.

You're not good enough.

There, I said it. I'm not saying it to myself, I'm saying it to YOU. Hearing the word "no" sucks, because that's exactly what it means, in just about any situation in our marketing and advertising world...heck, in most of the world in general.

Does it make you mad that I just told you you aren't good enough? Yes? Good, now calm down and prove me wrong. No? Both good and bad; Good, because you don't take things that may be out of your control personally. Bad, because you may just not care. I'm going to assume you care for the rest of this post. You're welcome to stop reading if you don't care about hearing no, because chances are that you don't particularly want to hear what I have to say to begin with. Lets take a moment and let those people take off.

...


...


Okay, everybody that wants to be here, are you still reading? Good.

Let me start by taking what I said earlier back. You are good enough. You wouldn't be doing what you are doing if you weren't. Hearing "no" from a client you're trying to sell to, or from a client that asked you to design something, or from your boss who asked you to do a task for them is not the end of the world. Hearing "no" basically means "try again, do it better" for the most part. If you learn to not take "no" personally or learn how to harness your anger into productivity when you hear "no", you will be much better off than most.

The biggest effect that "no" can have on a person will actually extend OUT of the current project. If you only ever learn one thing from reading my blog, this is what you need to learn. A "no" on project 1 CANNOT affect project 2. You cannot let yourself be gun shy, or be hesitant to step out of the box on a separate project or idea because you were told "no" on something else. Separate projects may as well be in separate worlds, even if they are both to be presented to the same person! Someone who would hold something from one project over you during a completely separate project doesn't deserve to be in the place they are in, in the first place.

I'll admit it...sometimes a "no" can really hurt. There is not a universal cure or workaround for a "no". I wish there was, and I honestly wish someone was making a crapload of money selling that cure, because never having to even consider fearing rejection would be amazing.

Please don't attempt to avoid "no", because that will be even worse for you. Do what you have to do to be able to UNDERSTAND "no" and you're on your way to greatness, I promise.

Anyone have a good story about overcoming a "no"??

Thanks for reading...

Here Comes The Money

I belong to a networking group of unemployed folks, and every week, we have a speaker come in and talk about whatever it is they do, or something we can do to help ourselves, etc. For instance, recently we had a guy from our local chamber of commerce come in and talk about starting small businesses, an account executive from an employment placement agency, and things like that. Generally, they have good advice, because they have been able to do something that those of us in the group are in, and find a job that the economy didn't eliminate.

There's a great mix of people, some old, some young, some with experiences you wouldn't believe, and some with none whatsoever. I've been noticing one particular attendee asks every presenter about how much they make, or what the money is like in their particular industry. This person has also been somewhat of a career hopper, not suprisingly.

I think that person is going about it all wrong. Even in today's economy, don't do something just because it's where the money is. Don't do something you don't know how to do, or something that would compromise you just because its where the money is.

Its not just advice for the unemployed, either. Following the money is not a good way to do things. Freelancers and Consultants know this firsthand. Just because someone offers you a project that's going to give you a lot of money, doesn't mean you should take it. If you don't know how to do it, or can't do it, because of time or whatever, in the end, you won't get the money anyways, because you will more than likely have to halfass it just because you need to finish it. Don't do it that way. Take the stuff that comes along that makes sense for you to take. Things may get a little tight in the meantime, but in the long run, it will be worth it.

Thanks for reading...

Depression and Social Marketing

I often wonder how different my views on social networking and social marketing would be if I wasn't on anti depression medication. There are times when I curse social networking, when I really kind of need to talk to someone but nobody's around to chat with....but when people are around and sharing thier ideas, experiences and such, its invauluable.

I'm sure there are times when I hesitate and miss making a connection or replying to a twitter post or a facebook group message...but I'm thinking everyone is like that. Because with social networking and marketing, the whole idea is that there are connections everywhere and if you miss one, you will be able to make another one.

Has anyone else wondered if their social networking or marketing experiences are clouded or heightened by anything??

Thanks for reading...

When You Fail

It will happen. Everyone fails. Everyone drops the ball.

Obviously recovering will depend on what exactly failed, whether it was an entire campaign, or just a particular part of one. It may not even be your fault, or even your company or your product's fault. That failure may even lead to something good....revolutionary, even.

Think of how many things in marketing, advertising and even product packaging have evolved over the past.

The saying goes, that for every warning label you see, some idiot did what it says not to do. I hope you're not that idiot, but maybe we should thank those idiots.

What are your favorite failures and/or recoveries in marketing or advertising?

Thanks for reading...

Self Marketing

Regardless of job status, age, gender, whatever classification you want to go by, one of the most important things about you is your image according to other people. Not yourself, other people. We all know how to do things and make things and whatever else that gives off the image that you want to project. Unfortunately there are very few jobs right now where what you want to show or to be is not what everyone else wants to see. Self Marketing, putting forth the best image of yourself for OTHER PEOPLE is one of the hardest skills to learn, yet you are expected to know how to do so before you know how to do anything else.

The difficult thing about Self Marketing is that almost everyone that can see your personal brand isn't looking for the same thing. Adapting yourself to conform to the widest set of opinions possible without compromising your own ideas and opinions is again, probably the hardest thing a person has to do. Most people have trouble thinking from the perspective of someone looking at them, rather than projecting out from themselves.

It's weird, because when you are young you're trained to care about your own image for the most part, and learning how to see yourself in the minds of others is pretty much shuffled to the backseat...and then you hit the real world, and are surprised to learn that you've been doing everything ass backwards your entire life.

Thanks for reading...

Consumer Reaction

So.

I just saw the new commercial starring the Sham-Wow guy. The slap-chop.

I know the goal in advertising and marketing is to get a reaction from the customer and get them to remember your product. Sometimes it does seem like we remember the stupid commercials more than good ones, though. Commercials by their mere existance are annoying and interrupting what we tuned in for, but why is it that purposely annoying commercials get more of a reaction from consumers?

Although, if the commercial is so horrible that so many people remember how horrible it was and what product it was for...was it really a horrible commercial?

Thanks for reading...