At several times in my career, I was in charge of the marketing for local small businesses. In each job, I would get a call (sometimes a visit) each year from a member of the local middle or high school yearbook staff. The exchange would normally go something like this:

Me: Hello
Them: (mumble) Wanna buy a yearbook ad?
Me: No
Them: Bye

Aside from the fact that yearbook ads are not marketing (they’re donations), I may have entertained the idea of buying “an ad” if the kid had prepared SOME sort of sales presentation that focused on my marketing needs. You know, something like: the ad will be seen by parents who are your customers, people will see these ads in 20 years, etc.  Anything in additon to just asking.

These days I hear lots of salespeople say, “I asked them if they wanted to buy _____ and they said no.”  

If your sales pitch is just asking, you’re missing alot of potential sales.
(There’s also the problem of salespeople who just talk to the customer and never ASK for the sale — but that’s another post)

If you’re just asking people to buy, then you’re not a salesperson. You’re a beggar. It’s a small distinction, but an important one.

Most of this problem (and most sales problems) can be traced back to the salesperson’s motivation. Are they wanting to make a sale or are they trying to solve the customer’s problem?

People just trying to make a sale do make a few (the yearbook always has ads in it) — but problem solvers are always successful salespeople.

Related posts:

1. Salespeople types
2. You can sell anything
3. expecting this call

But at the end of each year that I have blogged, I have done a list of top / favorite posts from the previous year. You can peruse previous years here: [2005] [2006] [2007] [2008]

I basically do the year end list for two reasons:

1. Me. I enjoy going back in the archives and rediscovering posts I had forgotten. Doing the year end list also helps me organize each year’s good stuff from my not-so-good stuff
2. You. New readers that joined later in the year may not have waded back through the archives. Or regulars may have missed one of these.

The criteria for the list? Some got lots of traffic or lots of commentary. And some are just ones that I really like.

• In terms of traffic, comments, tweets, etc, Do as they say, not as they do was the biggest post of the year. Basically, it affirms the fact that ad agency web sites stink.
• I did fewer speaking engagements in 2009 because companies were bringing in fewer speakers or canceling meetings altogether. In fact, I wrote a post suggesting that people cancel their meeting.
• Ah, the economy. Companies not only decided to kill off knowledge picked up from meetings, but also knee-jerked into a fear based marketing strategy during tough economic times.
• But didn’t you know you no longer have to spend money on marketing? Just talk to the kids on that MyFace thing for free! Just watch out for your company’s looming social media disaster.
• After they knee-jerked and destroyed their premium brand, I offered Starbucks some budget conscious marketing ideas
• In November, British Airways flew me to London and I brought back some thoughts about international marketing.
• A short post about the little things.
• Don’t make me hurt you. Stop using these stupid ad and marketing phrases.

In 2010, I hope to write more posts more here and cut back on writing what could be a good post here in 140 characters on Twitter instead. Either way, I’m sure that there will be more posts here in 2010 because my writing time will no longer be solely devoted to Brand Zeitgeist which, after several delays (mostly caused by me), will be published this Spring.

As always, thank you for reading, commenting on, and spreading the ideas that I publish here.

Related posts:

1. best of 2008
2. maybe you should cancel your meeting
3. Best of 2006

I’ve often said that it should be a requirement for all high school or college students to travel abroad. I was lucky enough to travel internationally at that point in my life and it helped to make sure I didn’t have a myopic worldview.

Today, I would think anyone in business could easily see the implications of the global economy. And I would hope that anyone who spends anytime online can see the global associations caused by the Internet.

But they really don’t.

Yes. Online connections can be made with anyone in the world. Some of my first heavy commenters when I began this blog back in 2005 were a woman in Canada and a guy in Russia. Even today, when I look at my Google Analytics traffic map or my Twitter followers, it blows me away that people from all over the world are reading my thoughts.

But just as barcamps, tweetups, conferences, and other real world meetups help cement relationships that we build online with fellow countrymen (and women), I think these real world meetings are even more important with the global community.

There’s the old saying that you really don’t understand someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes. People in your same country share your same cultural shoes. You really don’t understand a foreign culture until you’ve lived it for a few days.

And this is especially important in marketing. While participants in the groups that I spoke to at the British Airways event had many questions about doing business internationally — especially about logistics, one other common question was about international marketing. No matter the group you’re marketing to, it’s all about understanding the target group’s values, traditions, and worldviews. You cannot market to a culture that you have never personally experienced.

You also have to understand the current and long-term trends as they apply internationally to be successful in creating a global marketing strategy. One of the most striking quotes from the Face of Opportunity conference came from one of its best speakers, Digby, Lord Jones of Birmingham:

“We (the British) ruled the world in the 19th century, you Americans owned the 20th. This is Asia’s century, and how we all play that will define commercial success for the next 100 years.”

The worldview we have become accustomed to is changing. And when developing a global marketing strategy, you’ll have to throw away all the old ways of thinking and preconceived ideas. An incident during another presentation at the event highlighted this issue. A speaker used the example of the Chevy Nova not selling in Spanish speaking countries because the name supposedly translates into “it doesn’t go”. A member of the audience interrupted and called the story bogus as proven by Snopes and others:

Assuming that Spanish speakers would naturally see the word “nova” as equivalent to the phrase “no va” and think “Hey, this car doesn’t go!” is akin to assuming that English speakers would spurn a dinette set sold under the name Notable because nobody wants a dinette set that doesn’t include a table.

But I think most business people’s knowledge of international marketing only goes as far as the Chevy Nova and other false examples like baby food in Africa. If you’re planning a global marketing strategy, you need to start fresh with thinking approaches to marketing and not rely on old models as the world is a drastically different place than just a few years ago. Of course, as previously mentioned, the best thing you can do to help your marketing is go experience the country you’re planning to expand into.

But here’s the thing. Even if you don’t think you’re a global business, you are. If you’re online, you’re global and you need to think that way.

–Kent Bernhard, Jr. gives a much better a great play-by-play account of the British Airways Chicago-to-London Face of Opportunity events for Portfolio.
–Disclosure: British Airways provided my travel expenses for this trip.

Related posts:

1. Cultural Marketing 2.0
2. marketing using fear
3. come check my wiring harness

*****************

For the past year, I’ve been writing a book.
(a blog post will eventually be written about the joys and struggles of doing so)

It’s due to the publisher the week of Thanksgiving. (thankfully)

This new business book will hit the streets (as well as bookstores and Amazon) in early 2010. It looks at how groups and the overall society relates to brands and how brands can relate back to their markets’ culture. The book is geared toward brand novices. But it can also can be enjoyed by branding experts as a fresh look at how brands relate to society as well as a refresher of branding basics.

I’m looking for experts with demonstrative credentials in branding, advertising, or other business marketing areas to offer blurbs about the upcoming book.  These blurbs will be used in the forthcoming promotion of the book with the possibility of some being used on the book cover.
(uh, exactly what is a BLURB?)

If you’d like to write a short blurb about the book, please contact me via email or twitter by this weekend.

A pdf of the manuscript will be sent over the weekend only to those respondents that have offered sufficient credentials in their initial request. (super bonus points for previously published business authors!)

You’ll have a week (until 11/20) to read the manuscript (it’s a quick read) and send the blurb back to me along with how you’d like to be credited. If after reading the manuscript you feel that you cannot offer a positive recommendation, you are under no obligation to do so.

Bonus for people who read to the end of blog posts: Currently, the book will be published without a foreword. If after reading the book, you feel you can offer a 500 – 2000 word foreword. I’d be delighted in talking to you about how we can do that.

And if you’re stressed that you can’t help me right now, don’t despair. After the first of the year, there will be a blog book tour, a sales blitz, and the opportunity to do reviews.

Related posts:

1. business book reviewers
2. The Book – Version 0.1
3. accidental branding

The ones that get me the most are when something big has been happening for several hours and is already firmly entrenched as a trending topic.  Someone logs on and feels they need to be an “innovator” and help their poor “laggard” followers. For example: if gmail has been down for 5 or 6 hours, they would tweet this:

Whoa. I’m having trouble with my gmail acct. Something may be happening.

Related to that are the people discovering technology, but trying to act like a tech insider:

Just visited a Wordpress blog and it gave me the ability to leave a comment at the bottom of the post. New feature?

Matt Foley wannabes:

Attitudes are contagious. Is yours worth catching?

You gotta love people’s first tweet:

Trying out this new Twitter thing…

btw — I think a person’s first tweet should be:

@Watson! come here I need you!

T.M.I:

Good news: I get to leave the house today. Bad news: It’s to buy new catheter bags. (actual tweet!)

Crowdsourcing the mundane:

Anyone know how many toothpicks are in a standard box? has it traditionally been that number?

Spending the attention that I have given you to play some inane game:

I just ousted Cleatus as the Dog Catcher of Hooterville on Five Rhombus!

And sadly, I see this truly stupid one all the time…

Is Twitter down?

Did I miss some tweets that annoy you? Leave them in the comments. And if you want to see some really dumb tweets, you can follow me on Twitter @shotgunconcepts!

Related posts:

1. just a tweet
2. tweet checks
3. They must think we’re un-stupid

Microsoft wants you to have Windows 7 launch party. This is not a joke.

PLEASE do not invite me to any such “party”. If I find out that you’re having such a party, I will call the cops to break it up. I would assume the police would find the idea of the party so disturbing that they would not hesitate to break out the tasers and clubs. You’ve been warned.

If you decide to ignore these warnings, do make sure your guest list includes an obvious forced diversity as Microsoft has done in their sample party video. If you can make it through the entire sample video without rolling your eyes or throwing up, then maybe you’re a good candidate for one of these parties. 

Related posts:

1. Design Basics
2. The Best of 2005
3. mediaspam

The customer service angle is the most important, but I think there are four other big lessons here:

Presentation counts.

There are thousands of consumer gripes at this very moment on twitter, facebook, youtube, individual blogs, and every other web thingy you can think of. What made this one stick and go national?

It’s because it’s well done.

The first time I watched the video, I watched the entire 4:36 (and then watched it again) and you probably did too. By comparison, see how long you can make it through another United Airlines consumer complaint video.

Unless they have no life and unlimited time, people will choose to spend their time with engaging online content instead of stuff they have to struggle to digest.

And the important part for online virility: they won’t pass it on unless it’s really good. Think about your other WOM recommendations to friends. “That restaurant is awful. You should go!”

You still need big media to make a big impact

The video got a response from United within a short time of being posted, but it didn’t really take off into the stratosphere until several new and old media like the Consumerist, LA Times, NY Times, CNN, and other “big guys” featured the video. It might have taken off itself, but these Digg/Oprah-type spotlights amplified the user-level passalong effect to make it go viral. It also helped that Sons of Maxwell already had a fanbase that could help spread the message.

You have to have a base to push off of — if you’re going to jump high.

Don’t back down

United has offered Dave compensation for his guitar and he refused, requesting that United give the money to charity (United is donating $3,000 to the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz). And he is going ahead with the other two songs of his promised United trilogy.

In the end, he is going to come out way ahead. Taylor guitars has offered him some new guitars, other airlines are offering seats, and he and his band now have tremendous publicity.

Learn from your mistakes

It seems that United has no choice except to assume the Duck and Cover position for now. They’ve made the donation. The other songs are coming. (I hope one of them explains the sombreros.) At the minimum, the upcoming second one will get publicity. And United has said they are going to learn from the experience…

Rob Bradford, managing director of customer solutions at United, called Carroll Wednesday to apologize for the foul-up and to ask if the carrier could use the video internally to help change its culture.

(My first suggestion: eliminate stupid titles like “managing director of customer solutions”)

I’d love to see a case study or something come out of United on how they handled this. I think they actually have an opportunity to shine here if they don’t mess it up. The best thing they could do? Offer to help Dave to make the third video a happy ending.

UPDATE (7/17/09): I have thought of a fifth point. From my perspective, Dave Carroll seems like a nice, decent genuine guy. Being a good guy counts probably more than anything.

Related posts:

1. united trilogy ends
2. Diet Coke Says “Drop Dead” to CGC
3. eliminating the last olive

If you’re not putting in the effort to get a pertinent message to the proper media outlet, why should they put in the effort to publicize your cause?

This came from a local office of one of the major national non-profits…

(click to make it bigger)

Related posts:

1. the great hoosier nonprofit tour
2. results rather than messages
3. Holiday Marketing Tips

What a great move. Trash over 50 years of brand equity for something that makes me think of a dark dank dwelling in the Third World. Of course, it’s been coming for awhile. They’ve brand-extended themselves to oblivion instead of doing the core product (pizza!) well.

What makes it even more sad/funny is the delusion they’ve sold themselves and are now sending out in media relations…

…characterized the name change as an attempt to transform its stores into hip hangouts…..The new “hut” stores will be more than a place to simply pick up some take-out…they will include televisions that broadcast CBS programs such as “Wheel of Fortune” and “Entertainment Tonight.”

Because we all know the kids think that nothing can be more “hip” than Wheel of Fortune. Maybe they could reach back into the CBS archives and air old episodes of ‘Murder She Wrote’ to be even more hip.

They just may have a bad case of self-loathing with their name. They’ve tried to “rebrand” the Pizza Hut name on several previous occasions like “Pizza Hut Pizza & Pasta Cafe”, “Pizza Hut Italian Bistro”, “Pizza Hut WingStreet”, and the half-joking April Fools’ prank, “Pasta Hut”. A smart guy once said “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity”

Hey Yum!, listen up. The problem is not the Pizza Hut name. The problem is the customer experience. Even though your spokesperson, Christopher Fuller, gave a cheesy non-answer to real issues, the facts are clear in the public’s mind: Your employees don’t care. Your stores are dirty. Your service is horrible. (In one of my local Pizza Huts, there’s a sign above the lunch buffet that says not to even bother requesting any type of pizza because they aren’t going to do it.) And as I previously said in this post, you have forgotten your core product.

In kneejerk fashion, other chains may follow the move:

• Dominos will become “Backgammon”
• Papa Johns will become “Papa Smurfs”
• McDonalds will become “Mick”
• Taco Bell will become “The Bell”
• KFC will become “Sammy Nellas”
• Burger King will become “CP+B”

Related posts:

1. Do one thing and do it well
2. Welcome to Cicis!
3. Kentucky Fried Derby

Studies show that tips increase when the diner is given an after-dinner mint and the tip increases even more when the mint is personally handed to the diner by the waitstaff.

Free wi-fi is appreciated (and sometimes abused.)

The little things that you think you can easily cut — are the same things that are making your whole thing tick.

Related posts:

1. William Henry Harrison
2. the one where I talk about international marketing
3. marketing using fear