I don’t know anything else about the school, other than the fact that their brand is not helping them! If their target market was anything else other than non-English speakers, I don’t think they would have been so successful.

LINK

I am also giving away a $25 Chapters/Indigo Gift Certificate for one lucky winner (they have an online store as well for those out of Canada). Hope you are having a great New Year!

Another example of optimistic claims is the Park Lake Residences condo development (located at the Lakeshore and South Kingsway for Toronto readers). Yes, the condos are near to High Park and Lake Ontario. But the more obvious thing about them is that they are located between a highway (the Gardiner) and two major thoroughfares (the Lakeshore and the Queensway). So, I joke that the name should be changed from "Park Lake" to "Highway Street". But, I guess my new name wouldn’t sell condos.

But, the "Park Lake" name, reminds me of what people hate about us marketers… that our claims are too optimistic – we are overselling and underdelivering. But, doesn’t that quality in marketers also bring a kind of poetry to life? I was remembering today about how when we were kids we used to fold up our sheets into a triangle at the front and leave them as a rectangle at the back, and pretend that our beds were boats. It was so fun to pretend that we were in boats, and it felt so real – even though the simulation was rudimentary, even for us kids. Believing we were in boats made it much more fun and provided some kind of escape.

So, maybe the "Park Lake" name helps the residents forget the noise of the highways and streets and gets them to focus on the positive. Maybe living in an industrial area labeled "regal" gives some dignity to it. People are attracted to strong imagery and a nice dream-image, so much so they are willing to lay down their life savings for it… even if it is not quite honest.

This morning feels great. I don’t know if it had to do with all of the products, or if it had to do with me needing a few nights of good sleep because I was severely sleep deprived. I have been flying in and out of the province this week after all.

But, I do think that us kids who grew up watching hours and hours of TV get used to thinking that products can be the answer to our problems. Are you bored? Buy our toys and cereals. Are you not cool? Buy these CDs (I’m dating myself, I know) and clothes. And later… Are you lonely? Look prettier with these products and skinnier with our diet recommendations and you’ll attract all the people you want. Are you sad? Buy these pharmaceuticals. Yes, the ad appeals are much more sophisticated than that, but the messages can be distilled down to these points. Marketers know (me being one of them): find the pain point and present your product as a solution.

But, after all of this buying of shiny new things… are we really any happier or is it just an illusion? Also, can our environment sustain more and more people frantically buying in order to be happier? An article in Urban Dharma called "Meditation on a Coke Can" says the following:

Our desire to gain more happiness through having more people consuming more products and services inevitability must lead to less happiness because of an environment that can not support the demands being made on it. It is only through abandoning the illusory happiness of the current consumer culture—a culture that ignores the inherent complexity of a single can of soda–that humans can come into a stable and sustainable web of interrelationships with their environment.

Now, obviously I am not hating on the consumer marketers who made the TV ads mentioned above. They are just doing their job, making their bonuses and making the companies they work for more profitable… also potentially creating new jobs and wealth for a whole host of people including investors and retailers. They are also footing the bill for whatever free entertainment I was enjoying as a kid, paying the salary for the actors, producers and writers of the shows.

But, I do think there is a lot of room for individual critical thought around products being solutions. Next time I’m tired, I’ll take more walks, warm baths and hit the pillow sooner. Much more sustainable, and much less frantic. 

Teleconference Customer Panel: Right now for my main client I run a monthly customer panel to get their insights upcoming Marketing campaigns. The set-up is easy, we ask for volunteers through our opt-in newsletters, and offer points towards free merchandise depending on how many panels they attend. We then e-mail them the creative or scripts and ask them for their observations.

The panels usually take about 45 minutes, and we try to limit the conversation to 6 participants. These panels may be informal and always taken with a grain of salt, but in every single one of them I always learned something interesting about my market. One of the main problems with Marketing is that you get so involved with your own product that you can’t imagine what it is like from an outside perspective. For example, in one panel we realized that the users had no idea what we were talking about for an entire brochure, until we gave them a simple example. That example made it to the final print run.

Online Surveys: I find that surveys help a lot in quick and dirty analysis. My favourite inexpensive and simple tool is Survey Monkey but I am sure there are other great ones available. Although it usually lacks the statistical samplings you would get in a formal survey, it can help with a basic litmus test. For example, a few years ago a marketing team I was on was tasked with creating inspirational posters for a large branch network. We sent out a survey with 42 words, asking how much each represented the heart of the company’s corporate and cultural values. In the end, the posters were celebrated as some of the best marketing pieces the company ever made.

Some blame the media, but the media only chooses to put women in these poses because it sells things. If it stopped selling things, the billboards would disappear and the product managers would choose different messages. So, I wonder… why do we as women accept it? It puzzles me as a Marketer and as a woman. Many of the products featured in the ads are actually targeted towards women and for some reason… it works.

Sure, sex sells, but why this passive version? Why not sexual appeals that are more empowering? Years ago, people fought for more visible minorities to be represented in advertising and it worked. Now, why don’t women stand up and do the same? Why don’t we get more ad appeals that make us feel good about ourselves, instead of ones that only make us feel weak? This video uploaded by www.mediawatch.com does a great job of expressing these ideas.

Guy Kawasaki, a famous author and consultant is in the top 50 of bloggers on the Internet according to Technocrati, 21,000 people receive RSS feeds via Feedburner and 1,457 receive emails via FeedBlitz. The fact that this blog of all blogs is not earning more is shocking.

This paired with the recent Marketing Sherpa report that shows Direct Mail (DM) leading the pack as far as Marketing spend is concerned upsets me. Direct Mail? You mean those envelopes people receive and throw them away without opening them? Isn’t this killing trees for no reason? DM is ahead of broadcast, and spending on it is many times higher than any kind of Online marketing.

My conclusion from this is that Online Marketing is still in its infancy, whereas mediums like Direct Mail have had centuries to evolve and grow. With the ability to measure online results so precisely, you would think that more marketers would go this route instead of the traditional DM channel. Perhaps since DM is safe and predictable, and there are many well-seasoned Marketing Managers who understand it, decision-makers don’t see the need for change.

But – I think there is definitely some room to grow and innovate within Marketing. Still relying on DM is like still programming mainframe applications. Of course there are subject-matter experts, but that is no reason to keep the whole industry in the dark ages. Eventually as more advertisers see the benefits of online and as the online advertising industry continues to innovate, we will see more online ads… and less junk mail at our doorsteps. 

Rapaille is a Child Psychiatrist turned Marketer, and he uses psychoanalytic techniques to analyze the codes associated with certain products. He believes that it is something that he calls the "Reptilian Brain" that makes decisions on products, rather than logic.

When we [are] born, we have the reptilian brain. The reptilian brain is there already. It’s part of survival; it’s breathing, eating, going to the bathroom.

He says that when it comes to the Hummer decision for example, traditional market researchers look for logic, which has nothing to do with the decision:

Why do you need a Hummer to go shopping? "Well, you see, because in case there is a snowstorm." No. Why [do] you buy four wheel drive? "Well, you know, in case I need to go off-road." Well, you live in Manhattan; why do you need four wheel drive in Manhattan? "Well, you know, sometime[s] I go out, and I go — " You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand that this is disconnected. This is nothing to do with what the real reason is for people to do what they do. So there are many limits in traditional market research.

He says instead, it is the reptilian brain at work:

How can I decode this kind of behavior which is not a word? My theory is very simple: The reptilian always wins. I don’t care what you’re going to tell me intellectually. I don’t care. Give me the reptilian. Why? Because the reptilian always wins.

Rapaille’s techniques are very unusual. He gets his subjects to lie on the floor and brings them back to their first memories of their interaction with different products in order to understand the true essence of the product. He then "cracks the code" about what drives the  buying decision and consults Marketers to emphasize those aspects of the products in ad appeals and design. He has consulted to companies such as P&G and Chrysler on this. Here are his conclusions after analysis on the Jeep Wrangler:

When I worked with Chrysler, for example, we discovered that Jeeps should not have square headlights. That’s a very practical thing: no square headlights. Why? I don’t want to go into anything secret, but let’s suppose the code for a Jeep is an animal like a horse. You don’t see a horse with square eyes. The Jeep people didn’t say that; they said, "Yes, I want round headlights, like a face." And we use the face of the Jeep with the grille as a logo for Jeep. So when I discovered that, that was like a very reptilian dimension. And since then, no Jeep Wranglers have square headlights.

Can you see why he is hard to forget? He has recently published a book called The Culture Code.

All quotes are from Frontline – The Persuaders. Pic is from the New York Times.