One Red Hot Country Mama!

Every woman I have ever met, no matter what she looked like, has admitted that the celebrity version of beautiful has hit her self esteem. Looking at magazines, TV and movies, every woman has had that nagging feeling that she can never be beautiful enough for her boyfriend/husband/future partner. But, where would those celebrities be without their:

• hours of free time to spend at the gym
• personal trainers
• make up artists
• chefs who make the healthy food delicious
• make-up artists
• hair stylists
• plastic surgeons
• lighting technicians
• maids so they don’t have to be stressed out by cleaning

And as if that was not enough…

• photoshop airbrush tools hiding any lasting imperfections

This video is heartening, because it shows that even celebrities, with all of the advantages in the world, can look like the rest of us some days. With all of their enhancements in, celebrities are more like beauty caricatures, akin to cartoons with all of the paint and photoshop, than real people. If these celebrities, who were chosen for their roles in part for their beauty cannot reach their own standards naturally, how are the rest of us supposed to live up to them? Fewf! for the rest of us.

This week I read this article on author Guy Kawasaki getting a CPM of $1.39 compared to the CPM of $100 commanded by sites such as Forbes.com or BusinessWeek.com. It gets me thinking that even though more and more people are spending more and more time on the web, advertisers are not taking advantage of the online opportunity.

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. 

Usually, after watching a few hours of TV, most people immediately forget it – using their mind-space for more important endeavors. But sometimes, there is that one show that just sticks with you and keeps coming up in different contexts. For me, that show was an interview with Clotaire Rapaille on Frontline a few years back. This French man turns traditional Marketing Research on its head, saying that you can’t ask people what they think, since most people have no idea why they make certain decision (eg. they don’t know why they want to buy a Hummer).

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.

Last night I went to my sister’s place for Sunday dinner and listened to my 5-year-old nephew read to me. With every word that tumbled out of his mouth, I was amazed. How was this little guy, who was a drooling baby lying on my chest while I was reading just a few years back… now is reading to me?

I thought about how much I have developed in the past 5 years. In the same time that he has learned to crawl, walk, read, write, do Sudoku puzzles, play video games, play hockey, negotiate with his older brother and sister, make everyone laugh with perfectly timed jokes… what have I done? Yes, I have some accomplishments academically, professionally and personally but they are nothing compared to my little nephew’s achievements – which are not unusual for a five-year old.

Someone told me that there is an inverse relationship between aging and developing. So, if from 0-1, you grow at a 1/1 rate, from  29-30 you grow at a 1/30 rate and at 98-99 you grow at a 1/99 rate (or at 1% of where you were at 0-1). Even though a Developmental Psychologist would likely contest the science behind this – the main idea that growing and developing are easier when you are younger makes sense to me. I think it is possible to cheat the system through concerted effort… but, this idea does inspire me to do act now on the things that are important to me, since later they will surely be more difficult. 

Peter Drucker, who was one of the greatest thinkers in business said this:

In a few hundred years, when the history of our time is written from a long-term perspective, it is likely that the most important event those historians will see is not technology, not the Internet, not e-commerce. It is an unprecedented change in the human condition. For the first time – literally – substantial and rapidly growing numbers of people have choices. For the first time, they will have to manage themselves.

And society is totally unprepared of it.

Are we ready to manage our own lives to this extent? I have subscribed to the existentialist belief that life is a series of choices since I was a teenager. It seems that now, more than ever we have an ability to leverage education and entrepreneurialism to form the lives that we want.

Do you think that we can do it? I wrote a list this morning of why people like to have their decisions made for them by a school program, employer, family member, social norm etc. rather than taking charge of their lives:

• Protection
• Security (financial etc)
• Don’t need to take care of self (too lazy or not confident in ability)
• Don’t need to analyze and decide on each life-step – they are set for you
• Credibility (everyone understands what an MD is)
• Cannot be criticized – can complain about the authority instead of acting
• Strength in numbers
• Belief that the authority knows better
• Enjoy camaraderie of being part of something

This list (which is probably not completely exhaustive) represents why people move away from having complete control over their lives. I have always disliked authority and wanted to make my own choices on my own terms. Despite this, I still find myself frequently under the under the safety umbrella of people making choices for me for some of the reasons above. I think that Drucker raises an interesting question about millions of people managing their own lives. I wonder how many will choose not to have choices by following a prescribed path instead.