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I don't know that this ad is truly made by or for the benefit of Monster.com, but if it was, you have to wonder if it's a product of self-realization, contempt, or both.
Hat tip to Sean Howard for providing the link to the video. - Cam Beck
Creating Passionate Users pithily portrays how companies treat people before they are customers and afterwards. The pictures are more entertaining, but the gist of the article is this:
Before you become a customer, the company will do nearly anything to court you. After, you are treated like a commodity. This maxim is demonstrated in the difference between how prospects are treated by sales reps and how customers are treated by technical support.
The graphics are accurate as metaphors of chronologically linear relationships, but the goal should not be, as the author states, to stay the same. It is not only permissible, but preferable to grow and change in ways that pleasantly surprise the customer.
If a company stands pat and comforts itself with the belief that just because it has always been successful, that it will perpetually remain successful on the strength of the brand it built in the past, it will give way for a competitor to come in and offer something of greater value. Far from being a virtue, remaining static will eventually bore the customer.
Customers don't demand their product manuals be printed using the same expensive techniques as typical promotional materials. In fact, some might consider that a waste. However, they do demand that enough forethought put into them that they are easy to read and comprehend.
Accomplishing this feat only requires companies don't treat people as commodities, but instead engage in a perpetual conversation that allows and encourages continuous feedback and improvement.
None of this changes what I think was the author's central point, so this post is not meant to be a contradiction, but a complement. - Cam Beck
Rubix Cubes came out when I was a kid, and I remember everyone in my class being fascinated with the little puzzle. I learned that I could solve one side of the puzzle, but not the rest. Taking my cue from Alexander's "solving" the problem of the Gordian knot, the only way I could restore my Rubix cube was to break it and put it back together.
I know there's a mathematical formula for solving them now, but still, up until a few minutes ago, I would have thought this guy was a genius.
Thanks to a link from 37 Signals, now I have seen the true face of genius.
You have to feel for employees of Chrysler. After it was rumored that GM, losing market share and shedding workers by the thousands, was in talks to buy Chrysler, a bunch of other auto manufacturers got in line to announce that they are absolutely not interested in buying the company, which posted a loss of $1.475 billion in 2006 in spite of revenues of $4.26 billion.
Perhaps sensing the tension, Chrysler CEO Tom LaSorda, who is probably not wondering how he is going to feed his family once this all plays itself out, told Chrysler employees to stop their whining and focus. Do your damn job. That's what we pay you for. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
(I'm paraphrasing. Obviously those weren't his exact words.)
While I was still in school, I worked for a company that wasn't profitable. For months, I didn't know how long I was going to have a job. It is incredibly stressful. Luckily for my ego, I was working for a small, family-owned business, and not some corporate conglomerate. We were all friends, and they treated me and my concerns with compassion and understanding, and I understood that the situation wasn't easy for them, either.
What Chrysler could use right now is a little compassion. Not because they are legally obligated to give it, but because it's the right thing to do. These people have families, and they're worried. Chrysler should at least acknowledge that they have the right to be, and that they will do everything in their power to treat them fairly. People respect when their employers are honest with them, even if the news is unpleasant.
If the goal is, as LaSorda claimed, to right the ship and restore profitability, shoring up employee morale would be a great place to start. They won't get there by simply telling the employees to go against human nature and just ignore the rumors out there. - Cam Beck
Photo of the Chrysler Building courtesy of *Checco*.
A conversation over at MarketingProfs:Daily Fix raised the question about whether politics is a topic suited for marketing blogs and posited the things marketing and politics have in common. B.L. Ochman, an apparently left-leaning author, who wrote the original article (OMG! I Agree with Newt Gingrich), asserted that "politics is all about the marketing of ideas, people, beliefs, agendas." Stephen Denny, who believes himself to have a different political outlook than Ochman, claimed that politics is out of place on a marketing blog.
They both have valid points -- when viewed in the right context.
First, there is significant risk for a business blogger to make broad and unsupported claims -- even implicitly -- about factions, political figures, or political philosophies, because doing so may alienate those the author is trying to reach on business grounds alone. So when Ochman says that she 1) is shocked that she agrees with Newt Gingrich and 2) she wants Michael Bloomberg and Al Gore in the presidential election race (the latter of whom she wants to win), she is implicitly saying that ordinarily she thinks Gingrich is a complete loon.
That's not wrong for her to state, necessarily. As far as I know, it's still good to be open and honest about our biases when writing a persuasive essay. But she has to understand the risks she takes on when she so dismissively rejects his ordinary philosophies without supporting reasoning. She could have made the exact same marketing point by addressing the topic, not a political philosophy or one of the people behind it, which means that that not only did she take a risk, she did so needlessly.
A second problem lies with her assertion that "politics is all about the marketing of ideas, people, beliefs, agendas." It's true that in politics in America requires electioneering to disseminate information that we hope says something true about the candidate, but politics, which is a discipline that includes the manner in which power to tax and destroy is wielded, is not the same thing as marketing itself.
Even electioneering and marketing, while they use many of the same tools, differ in many important respects, such as the manner in which we choose a product, when the consequences of choosing right are felt, how directly they are felt, and how we may react when the product is something other than what we wanted.
Choosing by Committee
The products we choose in both cases are selected on account of what we feel is in our own best interests. In politics, however, who we choose to represent us in government must be selected for what we believe is best for the nation as a whole, taking account, as we must (or at least should), what the limitations are of the government's powers.
When we choose a typical household product in the marketplace, the consequences for getting it wrong affects only those living in that house. When we choose the wrong candidate, the consequences affect everyone -- even in states or districts outside of our own (with respect to the federal government), because the restrictions created and allowances made by the deliberative body affect the entire nation.
It's interesting to point out that the average American will spend more time and effort figuring out which television to buy than figuring out who would best represent him or her in Congress.
Delayed Consequences and Conflicting Motivations
When we buy something on the marketplace, we typically are able to determine important negative consequences immediately for most products, and within a few years for the others (such as a car or a house). By contrast, we often trust without question that the politicians we elect are seeking to advance our interests, and not his or her own, but we paradoxically realize that most people who are elected have "risen" to their position, not through chance, but through a willful exercise of skill and ambition. Therefore we can conclude that, in most cases, politicians have, at best, competing and sometimes mutually exclusive motivations, and at worst, nefarious ones that they won't hesitate to hide.
Whatever the case may be in any particular instance, it's also true that what a politician must say or do to be elected is not necessarily in agreement with what is best for the country in the long term, even if that means not treating competing ideas fairly. Those who hold the power of government make decisions that affect generations of people, so by the time the actual consequences of a decision or argument are felt, that politician may be long gone.
In the marketplace, we just stop buying the product, and we're not the lesser for it.
Of course the politicians will all say that they are for advancing the interests of their constituents, but as claiming otherwise would be political suicide, it's not something we can altogether trust based on personal knowledge of that person's character. We must instead make an evaluation of the character of the people we're considering based on information that has to come to us from another source. This is where a lot of the tactics associated with marketing come in, but ultimately it is up to us to believe or distrust the veracity of the information we are fed.
Since self-government demands a certain transparency in politics both before and after elections (we do have to have an accurate picture of what we're voting for), the lack of certainty in our knowledge of what the candidates really believe or will do is unsettling.
Consequences Are Not Obvious
If we buy a shampoo that makes our hair fall out, we'll know. Likewise, if the shampoo worked fine but smelled bad, we can immediately identify the problem and make a note for future reference to never buy that shampoo again. Some consequences are not obvious, such as when we buy a product or service we don't understand. This is true with me when I select a company to maintain my car. They could tell me squirrels were living in my engine (this has actually happened), and I would have no choice but to believe them.
Politicians can claim that something will have an effect, but if we don't understand what he or she is saying, we have no way to evaluate the claim's authenticity. It only requires a prima facie case be made, which might or might not reflect reality. Whether the topic is the correct level of taxation, minimum wage, the correct manner in collecting taxes for state revenue, or rent controls, on the face of it, we may have our own individual thoughts, but whatever our thoughts are, the decisions made in Congress have long-term economic and social consequences that are not obviously tied to the action.
Let's assume Congress has the ability, for instance, to institute a $100 per hour minimum wage law. It would not, as they intend, eliminate poverty. Several likely consequences of this law would be that 1) companies would stop hiring people and choose other ways to invest their capital, and 2) companies would deem it more painful to follow the law than violate it, and a black market for labor would be born. The overt effect would be that unemployment "on the books" would skyrocket, and politicians could, if the law were determined to be a reasonable demand by the public, decry the greed of the businesspeople who simply didn't want to pay a living wage to the working people.
We're Stuck With Our Choices
There are some special cases in the marketplace when we are practically stuck with the choices we made. When we say we're stuck with the house we bought, we're really saying it's not worth the price to get out of it, not that there is no way to get out of it. When we get snookered by a company or otherwise buy the wrong product, we can usually demand and receive a refund. If a company lies to us or does the bait and switch, we can look to the courts to deliver respite from fraud.
Unless they have violated some important law, we're pretty much stuck with whomever won the office until the next election, at best. In some cases, that term is only two years, and in others, six. What's clear is that with the amount of power they have, they can bring all sorts of damage onto our republic without our knowledge, since the long-term consequences of their actions aren't always clear.
In Conclusion
I've always been told never to talk about politics or religion in mixed company. It just so happens they are my favorite subjects. Whatever our political beliefs, it's more important that we mind our manners when discussing them in mixed company, not that we don't discuss them at all. We are all still subject to the results of elections whether we understand the "ideas, people, beliefs, agendas" of the elected, whether they are ultimately good for the country or not, and whether we agree with them or not. Discussion helps us understand those things better than trying to figure it all out on our own.
There are similarities between marketing and electioneering, but there are important differences that we need to understand both as marketers and as citizens, but as marketers especially, if we are to address them on a marketing blog. - Cam Beck
P.S. Many thanks go to B.L. and Stephen for stimulating the discussion. For full disclosure, I reject as a matter of accuracy the labels (conservative, liberal) floating around the political landscape today, but when pressed I alternatively describe myself as a libertarian conservative, conservative libertarian, or a classical liberal in the vein of John Locke. Most political junkies will understand what that means, but I don't know about those who are normally apathetic.
Last night I was in a bit of a pickle. Needing to pick up my son from day care before 6:30 p.m., I didn't have time to stop and refill my gas tank when, about a quarter of the way into my commute, my low fuel light turned itself on. About halfway home, my wife called me and told me she needed me there as quickly as I could get there, as our new baby was fussy, and she was having difficulty cooking dinner as a result.
I was pretty sure I could make it home, but I was worried about getting to work on time the next day, as filling up in the mornings is sometimes troublesome since getting my son ready to go to school can take more time than it should. Taking all of this into account, I picked Avery up and headed to my normal gas station, which belongs to a grocery chain that offers between a three- and ten-cent discount, based on each customer's individual shopping behavior through his or her customer loyalty "reward" card.
The advertised base price of gasoline was identical to the two other gas stations in the immediate vicinity. Therefore, filling up at this particular station, if I used my loyalty card, represented a real savings of three and ten cents per gallon of gasoline, which to me amounted to $0.36 and $1.20 for this visit.
However, four of the available ten stations were shut down. Out of gas. And there was a line at the rest, meaning that I either had to wait my turn, or else I'd have to go elsewhere. I could see the two other stations from where I was, and there were pumps available to anyone who was willing to pay the price. Keeping in mind my wife's predicament, anyone who is married knows that this is a no-brainer.
"Sure, honey, I made you wait an additional fifteen minutes with a fussy baby, but I saved us 36 cents at the pump!"
This just goes to show the role prices play in the allocation of scarce resources - even with a relatively inelastic product like gasoline. I don't know why the grocery store kept prices lower than everyone else. And I don't know why so many people were willing to wait in a long line to save less than two dollars. Last night, I couldn't have cared less. I just needed my gas right then, and the competition was able to give it to me at a price I was willing to pay.
To be clear, this isn't the first time this gas station had a line when others did not -- and for the same reasons -- I'm not basing my evaluation on this one experience. However, this was the first time I can remember that I actually chose the higher priced gasoline because I didn't have the time to wait in the line caused by the lower prices.
Who came out better in my mind? I'm sad to say -- neither company really has an advantage with me. Gas is still a commodity, and as such I will choose the company that best suits my needs at any given time. In what is true of most people, I'll buy on price if service is equivalent, and I'll buy on service when prices are more or less equal. It all comes down to who can best get me out of the pickle I happen to be in on the day I have to fill my gas tank. - Cam Beck
Photo courtesy of Hawaii.
Prolific blogger and writer Paul McEnany points out that the situation with JetBlue, which was the subject of one of my rants last week, actually might result in something worthwhile for passengers.
Back in July, I compared keeping customers informed at airports with contingency design on the Web. What I didn't say at the time was that my flight was delayed for six hours -- not because of the weather of my departure or destination city, but because of the weather at the city where our plane was supposed to be leaving.
Had the airline I was flying compensated me for my time in some way akin to what JetBlue is starting here, I might hate flying commercial less.
I would also like to point out that, in agreement with my post last week, this new passenger Bill of Rights has been adopted by JetBlue without any help from Congress, simply because it is in keeping with their best interests - namely to attract more passengers. - Cam Beck
P.S. If you haven't read the comments from last week's post, please do so. Several contributors added significantly to the discussion.
I have to admit that I don't watch television commercials much anymore -- at least, not on TV. To get my attention, advertisers either have to be very clever or very wrong. It was because of the latter quality that I noticed a commercial for Life cereal -- and was shocked to learn that they are attempting to trademark the phrase, "Life is full of surprises."
I don't know about you, but I've been hearing that cliché since I was an infant. How can anyone be allowed to be given legal rights to a phrase like that? "Life is full of surprises" is to tired clichés what water is to fish. Life put its flag on a cliché and all of the sudden it has perpetual rights to it on threat of civil lawsuit?
I couldn't find any news about it through Google or Technorati, which says to me there has been no controversy over it. So far, it doesn't appear as if Life has successfully registered the trademark, but that they're attempting to protect their use of the phrase at all seems to indicate a terrible lack of imagination and creativity.
I'm anxious to find out if anyone else feels the same way. - Cam Beck
David, Mike, and Chris are looking to reveal a secret that has something to do with a gathering in Chicago in May, which may or may not include SOBs and blogosphere heavy-hitters participating in bloggeroke. (Thanks to Bob for tipping me off to the SOB).
I don't know what it is, but the conversation has been fun, and the buildup of anticipation has been great. Plus, we're being promised that whatever it is, it will make us all better bloggers. (And you unfortunate regular readers know for a fact that I need to become a better blogger).
After 2 p.m. today, go over to one of the above blogs and see what the deal is. - Cam Beck
Update - Drew is in on it too. More and more I'm starting to feel like the last kid picked at dodge ball. :)
There are just some sorts of companies, such as airlines, I would never want to own, no matter how lucrative they could potentially be. And in spite of the golden parachutes the CEOs typically get when they lead an airline to bankruptcy, I wouldn't want to run one, either. It's not the responsibility or the workload I shun. It's not even my lack of qualifications. I could just as efficiently, if not more efficiently, lead an airline to bankruptcy as those guys.
No... It's the hassle. By that I mean subjecting my decisions to meddling people who have no interest in my business, but who will use their authority to make rules that negatively affect my business nonetheless, because doing so serves their interests.
Yes, I mean Congress.
Don't get me wrong... Making people wait for eleven hours on stationary planes, like JetBlue reportedly did, is inexcusable. Were I on one of those long-delayed planes, I might not fly JetBlue again. I've never flown on JetBlue, and I might not ever do so -- just on the strength of the criticisms of those who were subjected to the forced incarceration.
But am I to believe Congress is going to come to my rescue? Please. It's because of Congress that we've been subjected to the long delays and overall incompetence of the TSA. No, thank you, Congress. Just keep your "Passenger Bill of Rights" to yourself.
Of course it's popular, because we are all for "rights," aren't we? But here's the problem: We already have passengers' rights.
I don't have to fly, and because of the long delays associated with flying these days (although the automated ticketing agents really have sped things up on the airline side), if I can avoid it, I will. No one is forcing me to ride on a plane except for my employer from time to time, but I still have the freedom to refuse if I no longer wish to be employed by them.
JetBlue will pay a price for its behavior, but the only ones who should feel inclined to punish them for this particular transgression are the consumers, not Congress. Bankruptcy, if Congress will allow it to occur naturally without forcing bailouts on the taxpayers, will ensure companies pay a sufficient price for their behavior.
For JetBlue's part, they did at least try to make it up. They admitted the mistake, they attempted to give fair compensation to those who were subjected to holdup (even though the weather itself wasn't their fault), and they promised to do better next time. What more can we expect of them? If their service doesn't improve, the marketplace will punish them.
And much to the chagrin of people who want to politically benefit from the airline's bad publicity, the punishment will happen all by its lonesome, without any nudging from Congressional busybodies. - Cam Beck
