The new customer decision framework (which I believe has not entirely surfaced, at least in a singularly finite format in which we had adopted the sales funnel of the 1990′s to say 2008) places great importance on the influence ratings, reviews, recommendations and other collegial inputs offered by consumers.  The shift from deeply brand-centric control to higher levels of personal control (what one interprets, from whence they gather/seek bits, where importance is placed, the filters used to determine selection) affects brand planning strategies and execution.  The emergence of vehicles like Yelp! has grown traction in part due to our general mistrust of brands and the manner in which many continue to communicate to (note I didn’t say with) us as prospective customers or influencers.

In short, the homemaker in New Easton offering three out of four stars for a pair of shoes I’m thinking of buying carries more weight than the ad I missed in the general interest magazine I no longer read.  But I digress, starting a discussion about messaging, consumption habits and transparency.

What I wanted to share with you is a look at the customer of 2011, with the letter C as the theme.  In a nutshell:

1. Consumers exercise choice in the media channels they’re active in, and may use learnings assimilated their to determine their needs.
2. Consumers exercise control over all the input sources they’re exposed to, placing weight in a subjective manner.  Findings may affect previous thoughts about the priority of needs (features, functions, services, aesthetics, price, etc.)
3. Filtering leads to a decision to close, to conduct the transaction.  We may then share that action with our network in search of support for our decision.  Contrary opinions may be internalized, views held until we’ve had time to explore/vet/try what we bought.
4. Because we decided to part with our hard-earned cash and placed our trust in a brand, the post-purchase phase holds tremendous opportunity to “hold” us, whether that means captive (as with a defined service agreement where its imprudent to cancel) or cradle (as with treat with care, continue serving our needs with an eye to long-term relationships.

I’d love your thoughts.  Remembering that this is a high-level perspective, what would you change or add to this view?  Thanks for helping make this a stronger analysis.

And just how does a brand and its agency get there, to that Place Of Perfect Name?  Do brand managers know it when they hear it?

The art of creativity

I spent the first 16 years of my career at full-service agencies.  Of course, 15 years ago, “full service” had a different meaning than it does today.  Macs were spanky new and computers in general were still somewhat of a novelty.  Back then, I worked with a highly talented designer on a repositioning and repacking project for a popcorn manufacturer; he still worked with pencils, we still mounted and flapped his paper comps, and they still went out via Fed-Ex Overnight for client review.  We worked in print, broadcast, out-of-home, and in-store.

Concepting  a solution for a brand involved  a project brief, strategy map and focused fieldwork.  There may have been focus groups, media analysis and custom research.  There was certainly a writer, an art director and a creative director involved. If the account person wasn’t a nOOb, they may have been allowed to gain entry to the creative staff floor.

In contrast, during the past 2 years I’ve worked in digital signage and eCommerce fields where technology and the internet play a pivotal role among internal teams and external customers alike.  When the power goes out or the WiFi goes down, business – and even revenue – comes to a screeching halt.

I create, therefore I am

What started in pencils is now in pixels.  Times change. Technological advancements and human curiosity combined with the quest for efficiency, value, and changes in societal behavior make this marketplace different than the one of last year.  Different, even, than the one of tomorrow.

We want to leave our personal mark on the world.  We do that most often by being creative.

We create art.  We create music.  We make food.  We make practical tools and fanciful trappings.  We create things of value, albeit sometimes subjective value.  We may shun the excentricities and self-absorption of others who create experiences we don’t understand or appreciate (think: Lady Gaga or even Disney amusement parks) even while we’re lured by their sirens song of fantasy, escape and joy.  Creativity is really not a prescribed or rational process.

Creative process for brands

Brands emerge (and evolve) through acts of creativity, too.  In this months’ Fast Company, Dan and Chip Heath wrote about the creative process favored by Lexicon, a small company responsible for very familiar product names such as RIM BlackBerry, Intel Pentium, Colgate Wisp, and Procter & Gamble Swiffer.

Agency founder David Placek said “…great names do not come from lightening-bolt moments.”  And indeed, his company eschews the common “brainstorming” method:  nobody sits around a conference table, staring at the product to be named, tossing out random ideas tied directly to the product.  If they had, the BlackBerry would have been named “EasyMail” and the Pentium would’ve been called “ProChip.”

Instead, Lexicon’s creative process involves small, geographically dispersed teams, some of whom are blind to the client and the product.  Those blind teams take specialized direction, often involving the antidotes of the sensations or experiences common to the product category.  In that manner, the blind teams essentially draw out an irrational and possibly emotion-based name idea that could help sell the product.  Some teams focus on what the product delivers or does, while others focus on what it doesn’t do.  This balance, according to the article, may generate some excess ideas that get culled immediately, but it’s a proven and comprehensive approach.

Those “excess ideas?”  Well, those really don’t go to waste.  They become part of an experiment arsenal, ready to be pulled out and reexamined – even reconfigured – when the occasion and product is right.  Danc at the blog Lost Garden, referring to the creative process of software development, wrote the creative process is “a portfolio of experiments” and went on to write:

“…creativity is an iterative process in which you synthesize the final result from a variety of sources and thousands of potential solutions. It is not purely a deductive process with a single right answer…When you fail to experiment broadly, you are building your solution from an anemic set of mental and technical resources. It is the equivalent of trying to design a bridge when the only material you’ve tested is paper.”

Solutions far and wide

Lexicon, so it would seem, experiments broadly. The creative process is varied and involves rotating teams of people from within and external to the client domain.  The informed team approaches the solution fully aware of the landscape and functionality, and they examine the problem from a features or characteristics perspective (delivers email wirelessly; is small enough to fit in pocket).  The uninformed team instead thinks about the positive attributes and outcomes (freedom, untethered).

What does your creative process look like?  Does it include convergent or divergent techniques?  How does your process help you innovate?

I once spent several years servicing Iams Dog and Cat Foods, a Proctor & Gamble brand.  P&G is an amazing institution on a number of levels and the team I worked with earned my respect.  However, as with many super-large organizations, sometimes protocol, chain of command, and overwhelming self-preservation get in the way of advancing goals at a more practical pace.  Sometimes, two years would pass between an initial planning meeting (new product introduction, a marketing innovation, reformulation) and the beginning of the production phase for in-store promotional materials.  The agonizing hash, re-hash, consultation with 3-6 other roster agencies, inevitable R&D change, etc. could be grueling on everyone involved.  Then the competition would do something the brand felt it needed to adjust to counter or otherwise respond to, and poof! We’d be back at the drawing board.

I fully support due diligence, research, and careful arrival at conclusion based on available data and instinct.  But at some (reasonable) point, you just gotta launch.  You have to claim the space you’re spying, and just work like Hades to get there.

I digress, but still an important point.  Another P&G-ism is the overstuffing of colloquialisms.  As you might expect, P&G has it’s own culture, it’s own way of thinking, and its own screening processes honed by fierce competition and an unerring eye on market share.  It’s portfolio boasts premium brands in unsexy categories.  And still they direct the selection of photography talent with input like:

“We want someone aspirational, but not too.  She has to be attractive but not threatening to our audience.  She can be less than perfect, but maintain the ideal model qualities.”

Um, what was that?  Are we talking about genetically engineering models here?

The intent was there, I’m sure.  But the attention maybe a little misplaced.  I’ve (thankfully) forgotten much of the P&G-speak I learned (not good for everyday discussions with most people : blank looks), and I’m not suggesting that any of their brands are unremarkable.  But sometimes copious resources, both hard and soft, were placed against a fuzzily defined, moving goal.  Sometimes, the brand’s perception of its image was so scientifically formulated that in squeezing out all of the qualitative data, they left themselves with a stripped down (albeit functioning) shell that lacked warmth and the element of emotional attraction so vital to passionate pet owners.

By all means, consider the formula, the requirements, the data.  Just don’t skip the consumer connection.  Otherwise, you may sell some bags of dog food, but you’ll never give your customers a reason to commit.

Like any good relationship, a magnetic pull has to exist between consumer and brand.  Yes, the intensity of the pull may vary (you’d be surprised how strongly I feel about Land O’ Lakes butter and Pilot PreciseGrip pens, for crying out loud), but it has to be reciprocal and compelling.  Like it or not, most decisions are emotion-based.

While you might evaluate a potential date by his intelligence or self-sacrificing nature and you might rate a friend by how well she keeps commitments, a brand might merit consumer interest when it appears exclusive (even temporarily), appeals to certain aesthetic values, or asserts itself as a status symbol (appealing to our ego).  Think Apple, although undoubtedly usability, experience, and cognition-based functionality contribute too.

Where does attraction begin?  Long before the product is packaged or the service is pitched.  It begins with your unique selling proposition.  Or it may start with your POD (point of differentiation).   It can be called by any number of terms, but the genesis of attraction stems from meeting a previously unmet (even unarticulated) need in a distinctive way.  I’ll attest that you don’t even have to necessarily meet it in an exceedingly stellar way – not at first.  You just have to spy a space (one that matters) and you have to be there.  Own it.  Even creating polarizing groups as a result of your claim is preferential to no one really caring.

In the Apple instance again, thinking back to the early ‘90s it wasn’t even that the company’s products met a need so much as they challenged status quo.  That created the kind of curiosity that led to trial and discussion and, well you know the rest (and to think they clobbered IBM and HP without the social media outposts we have today!).

The point is, if you can’t quickly, concisely articulate what makes you distinguishable from your competition (or better yet, why your competition is completely obsolete), how in the Sam Hill can prospective customers feel the difference?   Your brand may be in a commodity market, but that doesn’t mean you have to act like it.

Being unremarkable might not prevent prospects from buying from you once or even twice.  But do you really want to balance your business on a group of people who have no compelling reason to commit to you?  Who aren’t well, attracted to your offer?

Oops! Gotta run.  Reasons #2 (You’re wearing your father’s suit) and #3 (You need to become reacquainted with Crayola and Play-Doh) will follow soon!

Sometimes marketing teams struggle to reach solutions to problems.  There could be a million reasons for the struggle, ranging from personal style or very different work experiences over to disparate points of view on the objectives and goals.  While there’s tremendous value to having a mix of talent and styles on a team, the opportunity created by the mix may be diminished by a lack of cohesion, shared vision, and communication.  Does everyone know where they fit?  Does IT understand and appreciate why Marketing needs what they need?  Does Sales understand the pivotal role they play in sending critical messages to customers?  Do the SEO folks understand the criticality of balancing message with link juice?  Does someone somewhere have an expectation (or misapprehension) that they don’t communicate?  Frankly, stuff can get in the way and that stuff can hold your company back.

Short Term Gains

To many businesses, immediate returns on investment may help drive exponential growth.  Makes simple sense, right?  A positive return may cover the cost of goods sold and provide the level of profit needed to cover operations and add to the “tomorrow” pile of funds.  That’s good, and may even be great.  But how do you scale that to really get where you want to go?  How do you build something enduring that withstands an economic trend like the (recent) recession or lingering change in consumer buying behavior and value drivers?  What about a ding in reputation and position due to an unforeseen quality issue created by a supplier?  Are there ways “Spend X to sell Y” can possibly limit the growth of more stable value drivers like credibility, trust, affinity and endorsement?  Can near-term and long-term needs be met with an integrated, multi-faceted, multi-channeled marketing communications plan?

If your sights are narrowly set, do you risk overlooking to the kinds of initiatives (and people) that could really take your brand places later on?

Long Term Rewards

Scalable success is not built on the backs of a few.  It requires the insight to maneuver ahead, and the fortitude to expose some vulnerabilities.  Just like recruiting and retaining good contributors is an ongoing investment of time and resources (or should be), growing sales is not exclusively about selling more, at least not in a 1:1 set ratio.

Said differently, attaining positive business outcomes is not about doing one thing right or even five things right.  It’s not about repeating what has worked in the past for fear (or out of ignorance or arrogance) of losing a measure of control by listening (and implicitly trusting) someone else.  Success is not about doing things your way, even though your way most assuredly got you started on the right path.

At some point things change.  They mature.  World economics, consumer trends, supply chain dynamics, societal values – they all happen.  Products evolve to commodization or unforeseen competitive innovation renders your brand impotent.  Were it your company’s practice to fold in a variety of perspectives when proactively planning for brand growth, the paralysis could reasonably be temporary.

A Balanced Strategy and Team

The reality of work is it must get done.  The tactical, hands-on stuff has got to get tackled every day, often just to stay afloat.  The challenge I think we have as marketers and business persons is to weave a wellspring of viewpoints together, going to extreme measures to  integrate groups of people representing different types of work.  These folks can’t just know their job really well.  To grow and sale, they have to understand several layers of everyone else’s job as well.  They have to be recognized for their subject matter expertise or skill set (and what power that can bring the company), but they have to apply themselves to really learning what others do and why that matters.

This kind of comingling  can build teams up while creating potential for  brand new ideas.  The folks previously so exclusively focused on their core tasks and methods can learn something new and valuable from others.  It’ll remove some of the mystique of what others do, and it’ll change mindsets from short-sighted to long-term (not ‘mine’ but rather ‘ours’).  When everyone is capable of seeing where they fit and how all the pieces can come together, a beautiful picture can emerge.

1. “I’ve been doing this a long time.”
2. “Do you have anything new going on?  That’s what we need to focus on.”
3. “It’s okay that the folks in <xyz department> don’t ‘get’ social media. We don’t need them.”
4. “I can have <your brand> up and running in no time.”
5. “Once I’ve set everything up, its pretty minimal upkeep from there.”

First, the terms {“expert,” “guru,” “maven”} and the like just don’t belong in a job title.  Those terms may be how peers and the media choose to describe someone with notable accomplishments or credentials, but those are not positions we can claim for ourselves.  My brilliant sister is not an Accounting Expert or even a CPA Expert, although she certainly knows her stuff.  Ever heard of a CEO Expert? Bah. Plus, “long time” can, at the max, be like 3 years. Thinking in terms of a recent college graduate, 3 years job experience would place them in an entry-level role, yes?

Second, “new” may be sexy. “New” may be enticing, or even innovative.  But what’s new has limited power until considered in context with a brand’s history, its product lines, target audiences, year-over-year sales trends, competitive activity, focus group findings, and sales or share objectives.  I think my grandma called it “flash in the pan.”  You must take the time to do your homework, intelligently laying a framework of trust and value in order to build sustainable relationships with customers, irrespective of the communications channel (online or off).  You gotta have more than just ‘new’ to have staying power (and if your brand isn’t in it to stay, why be in it at all?)

Run away if you hear number three, far and fast.  Not only does setting up social media platforms – using the plethora of tools – require help from marketing, design, procurement, customer service, product management, even IT – but given the cultural impact and downstream effect of becoming a socialized business, it’s imperative that every member of the organization from warehousing to accounting understand the master plan (and you better have one!).  Confusion or ignorance can lead to dissention which affects attitudes and…you get the point.

Number four is tied to number three and clearly not a quick&easy endeavor.  Social media is not free, and it ain’t easy…unless you’re having a go at it without a master plan,  just clicking around on Facebook.

Fifth is connected to four and three (funny, this is starting to sound like something organized and intentional, like <gasp!> a plan).  Unless your strategy is along the lines of Woot (and hey, nod to them for what looks to be segmented sales-oriented channels and a conscientious decision to not attempt community with a transaction-driven brand), its going to continue to require a lot of work.  Monitoring sentiment, customer service, reputation management, awareness-building, etc. – whatever the focus, maintaining a social brand is hard work.  It’s like that all-in-one knife, and the tools are all being used at once.

Any more lies you’d add to this list?

There’s A lot To Consider.

A brand’s position is always evolving and even migrating within an organization and also in the minds of its customers.  There are line extensions, new formulations, and public mishandlings- these change the dynamics of things.  The forces and variables in play determining a brand’s position (and ultimately, precipitating reactive responses and proactive planning) are almost innumerable:  market opportunity, operational weaknesses, economic trends, audience awareness, strength of distribution channels just to list a few.  I think good marketing is both an art and a science because intuition, category knowledge, and relating to core audiences are as important as adhering to methodical, sequential, planning/process.  You have to understand those forces and variables in order to apply them.

When you have raw material (like a ball of yarn) and you know your end goal is to have put together a cohesive finished product that can stand on its own (like a knit dress),  where do you start? Is it entirely a linear process (back to that methodical, sequential part)? Or do you sometimes have to ‘chunk’ the work into manageable projects which ultimately can come together to form a larger, better whole?

Carte Blanche.

It’s rare that a marketer is permitted to strip down a brand and start fresh from the foundation up, working through all those steps and checklists.  After all, there’s equity to consider and an existing customer base to avoid alienating.  But what about building that strategy, you ask? Without strategy in place you can’t execute with any degree of success!

Well, yes and no.

I think that team collaboration to arrive at big-picture, all-known-issues-considered strategy is certainly critical.  Stakeholders have to determine where they need to be, the areas they must focus on in order to get there, how they can measure success, and what strengths (brand attributes) they have available.

What I’m suggesting is that sometimes you have to go through those exercises in order to get folks on the same page, working toward a common objective.  Strategy is often lofty (“…grow 135% this year…”) and can’t be achieved in a fell swoop.

Half-Baked, Not Half-Assed.(there’s a difference)

By systematically breaking down components of an overarching strategy, cross-functional work groups (who, BTW, likely have full plates with their day job) can more easily assume individual tasks or assist with whole projects.  This helps, too, with just getting something (anything!) done that is remotely in the Strategic Plan arena.

Right now, I’m working with someone to develop a mail piece. We want to take advantage of certain inventory and make an easy incremental sale (or 400) with an incentive reward.  All of the puzzle pieces are not in place with this brand – we have opportunities to strengthen our values messaging, deploy some creative engagement tactics, and tighten the overall brand experience. But we can’t move on all of that just yet, in one lump – so we’re taking our chances and establishing what could be a few key design and messaging elements that we’ll be able to build on when we tackle the next leg of the overall strategy.

Perfect? By no means. Practical? Yes. Potentially valuable? Provided there IS continual discussion, discourse, and an identified end position, I say it’s a plan for incremental success.

——-

On the tactical side, I’ve found it tremendously helpful to dedicate a wall (or a huge cork board) to posting samples of communications pieces as they’re finalized/published. The wall can include press releases, product brochures, print ads, case studies, logowear, fact sheets, data sheets, you name it. It’s a great way to verify that everything produced “hangs” or “families” together.  It’s even more important if there are multiple designers or writers working for the same brand, or one person manages online and another manages offline for the same brand.

Inevitably, you may find that while what you created early on pretty much works, well it’s just not quite a perfect match with the middle and last bodies of work. That’s okay – I think that’s what will keep you on the straight and narrow moving forward.

Bandwagon, Meet Your Passengers.

Last week we talked about diner-style social media services, how a reputable agency seemed to be offering “all you can eat” tactics guaranteed to garner friends, followers, fans, and fruitcakes (F Numbers). I say that mindset is a harmful distraction (read points 1 & 2) from a company’s fundamental marketing and communications goals. It presumes some surface shenanigans will result in business value.

I ask, what good are some F Numbers if you don’t have a plan? A purpose?  If you didn’t set out with an objective to drive specific results (or insights) which would feed back in to something important (customer relations, customer service, loyalty programming, reputation initiatives, sentiment steering, tech support, new product development, customer education, etc.) to drive consideration, trial, growth, satisfaction, or sharing? Well, then they’re just random numbers (read points 1,2,4,8) that might be interesting topically, validate brand relevance, or feed a competitive spirit, but serve no greater operational or organizational good. But agencies can sometimes speak with condescending authority and clients can sometimes nod with a confidence they don’t have.

Planes, Trains, and Claims.

I’m concerned some communications agencies/consultants might be assuming too much of what may only really amount to some tactical social media implementation know-how (gleaned for self-serving purposes), and instead presenting this tool plus that widget added to some ‘net surfing and calling it “social media planning” on a stick (or a short-order menu). In my mind, that’s what the agency in my example is doing (at least so far as their Web site content presents viewers).

If clients are buying that short-order mentality (and they must be), then what they’re really doing is condoning a diversion from goal, and allowing shiny distractions to feed an ego or placate an ill-informed top-down mandate. At the very least, they’re misusing marketing dollars to pursue something they don’t understand and certainly under-leverage.

In my previous post, I received a lot of great comments from folks that brought up interesting points. I think two main themes surfaced, including the ridiculous “speedy-quick” (read point 2) service promise and implication of instant results and gratification. Doesn’t a focus on fast serve to commododize the craft and the profession, lending credence to those who argue against social media and the notion of infusing outreach and approachability on an organizational level?

Another really great angle Brandon and Jorge brought up is the idea of mutual accountability (shared by the agency and the client) perpetuating a half-baked perception about the uses of social media and the ease/speed with which someone can plug the tools into their “Available Services” listing and claim “We do that.”

Yes, you do. But should you?  As long as there are stupid clients (easy to recognize, as their sentences begin with “We saw competitor X had blah, and so we thought…”), there will be agencies that clamor to capitalize on them (so pointed out the smart @carakeithley).

More On The Menu.

So you see below our friendly bandwagon-driving, full-service agency also offers Levels 2 and 3 of social media planning. Presumably for the client that wants to “get more” from their F Numbers (friends, followers, fans, and fruitcakes) program.

Here’s what I don’t get (okay, we don’t have that much time. So here’s part of what I don’t get).

1) Level 2 taps steps from Level 1 as necessary but produces monitoring for content evaluation for brand integrity. And it meets or beats strategic goals.  Say what? What does that mean?

2) Considering there was no language in Level 1 addressing the creation of strategic goals, how on earth could Level 2 results be measured against them?  We don’t even know what they are, because there was no planning phase!

3) As a client, how would I determine whether 5 hours or 10 hours would suit my needs? As listed, I see no value-add and frankly smells of Mad Men-era budget oversight.

4) I have no clue what the deliverable is for Level 3 clients. Nada.

5) So then what? What comes after Level 3, class? What options does the client have? Is the program ready to pull-in house? Does the program self-maintain? Do they have to keep on forking over $3,000 per month for….? Is there a touchstone, a postmortem, some point where an evaluation takes place of all the random platforms, the feedback, the participation levels? Heaven knows, there’s no chance to determine a return on effort (‘cuz there’s likely to have been no engagement, only expense), and mention of return on investment would make folks start to perspire.

Oh, and anyone notice there are 38, count ‘em, 38 words in the first sentence of Level 2? And what’s up with ‘enhanced,’ is that the new superjargonword? This agency is really impressing me with their mad skillz.

Owners, Don’t Let Your Agencies Grow Up To Be Posers.

I’m not knocking the tools (they sure beat tin cans and strings), and I certainly understand the excitement.  Social media dovetails nicely with member’s emotional needs including a sense of inclusion, compassion, and communication, and is strongly supported with technology and curated by a rapidly evolving business environment.  I just don’t believe an agency can purport to be more than they are without sacrificing their integrity in order to bear false claims. The very manner in which this agency presents their social media services suggests a shallowness I suspect clients experience.

PS – yes, I realize I have a habit of mixing metaphors. Love me anyway.

PPS – you know by “fruitcakes” I mean those fan/join everything indiscriminately and without true interest.

Last week, I was in Des Moines, IA attending a marketing conference sponsored by the Iowa Banker’s Association titled “Blue Ribbon Banking: Marketing for Success.”   At Ovation, we’re considering our sales strategy for the bank vertical and this local conference provided good timing.

My banking experience is limited to the typical consumer relationship, so I thought it particularly important to visit with bank marketers in hopes to better understand their pain points.  Knowing the issues they face could help us tighten our messaging or even inform development of creative sales programs to help reduce barriers to entry.  While in attendance, I sat in on three presentations that remain top-of-mind for me, from presenters Mills Financial Marketing (Spirit Lake, IA), F&M Bank (Columbia, TN), and McLellan Marketing (Des Moines, IA).

140 Characters or Less

Mills had the opening keynote and endeavored to cover a lot of ground including e-marketing tactics, ideas to befriend local media in an effort to increase exposure, and about tapping into the community to create a vibe and stay current.

F&M had another 2-hour session presented as a case history of the institution. From a small, infrequented bank located in the wrong neighborhood to an incredibly successful, high profile institution with impressively appointed offices, F&M has grown by tapping into key customer motivators (like ‘exclusivity’) and psychological aspects (such as southern-bred compunction to reciprocate). It started by using twice-weekly ladies lunches (hence the chicken salad) to create networking opportunities for bank executives to connect with prospects (and their friends!) on a personal level.  The bank remains focused by funneling marketing dollars only into venues that provide the greatest opportunity for exposure and return–instead of sponsoring a Little League team and receiving the F&M logo imprint in return, the bank might sponsor the winning team pizza lunch and make a short congratulatory announcement, followed by small talk with the kids parents.

Drew McLellan (@DrewMcLellan) provided curious bank marketers with insights into baby step-sized forays into the world of social media and social networking.  I live-tweeted the presentation (#drew), but you may have to scan through some other search results in order to view my notes.  I think Drew used humor to to comfort and reach his audience, and broke down the various tools and platforms into easily understood and prioritized chunks. Among his imperatives were Google Alerts and LinkedIn. He mentioned posting his presentation online, and when I can get the URL, I’ll update this post.

At the End of the Day

Some part of me had hoped to learn about some new tools or understand topics in a deeper way that I could apply back at the office. While that didn’t necessarily happen, I did gain a greater appreciation for the unique situation marketers in each separate vertical must face–I truly did not anticipate that banking would be slower to adopt than healthcare, but in speaking with folks at the conference I’d say that’s definitely the case. This event impresses upon me the importance of research, focus fieldwork, and good old-fashioned listening.  You may have a great product or service, but you’ll run into difficulties reaching prospects if you don’t truly understand how to relieve their pressure points. Looking forward to the September IBA conference, I figure we’ll be ready.

The sentiment on the street remains cautious, conservative, and even scrappy. Businesses everywhere are feeling the shock waves which still reverberate from the crumbling financial and real estate empire which began 18 months ago. There’s no arguing that belts have been tightened, expense reports and expansion plans scrutinized, and sacrifices made in the interest of staying protected, controlling cash flow, and mitigating exposure/risk.

Yankelovich:

As consumers, we’ve felt the effects at the office, the pump, the check-out stand, and in our quarterly 401(k) statements (aside: yowza!).

What I’d like to explore, however, is how these times–these circumstances–are affecting business beyond defensive and reactive measures.

What Are You Gonna Do About It, Huh?

What are clever businesses doing offensively as a result of the current environment? What are they doing in an effort to conduct ‘business as usual’ and pursue share? Or are they focusing on maintaining existing customer bases?

Take That, Giant Sucking Sound!

Captian Clever Is Victorious!

I’ve found a few approaches I think are interesting. What have you seen by either a local, regional, or national brand that you think is a particularly compelling way of thumping the nose of economic pundits or extending a hand to consumers?

1. Domino’s Capitol Hill campaign and “Big Taste Bailout” promotion
2. Ford Advantage Program‘s Job Loss Guarantee
3. Walgreen’s “Take Care Recovery Plan” offering free health care
4. Michigan homebuilder Allen Edwin’s “Peace of Mind” mortgage payment program