Getting out of the Ecko chamber

Barry Bonds apparently doesn't get Marc Ecko. The fashion designer who spent $750 thousand on the ball that marked Barry Bonds' 756th home run and consequently broke Hank Aaron's record, is offering to get rid of the ball, deface the ball, or send it to the baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown unscathed. And he's going to let the public decide (Vote).

Barry Bonds thinks Ecko is "an idiot."

In his mind, a baseball can't be used for any other purpose than what it was intended, which is to play a game. If that's the case, then spending $750,000 on a ball would indeed be a colossal waste of money.

Apparently those performance enhancers Bonds allegedly took did not help him with his reasoning or marketing ability. First, he seems to think that the allegations against him are no big deal to the rest of the public -- especially baseball fans. Second, he doesn't see the value Ecko is getting for that $750,000.

While it might be true that Ecko is so passionate about baseball that he wanted to ensure Bonds took some lumps for breaking the rules, depending on what Ecko wants to do with it, $750,000 could be quite a bargain for all the publicity he's getting.

Last I checked, almost 1.5 million people have cast their votes, and we can expect more to come as the effort gets publicized.

Bonds isn't the only one with myopia, though. Many times marketers have difficulty seeing past their own organizational structure to realize that people don't look at their company like the marketers think they should. Instead of taking account of how people actually behave, marketers and designers try to force them to act in a way that goes contrary to their experience.

Most people won't bother, especially when the competition is only a Google search away.

Case in point: Kleenex was developed to help women take off their makeup, but when people started using it as a handkerchief, instead of calling them "idiots," Kleenex tested consumer response to advertising that showed their product being used in the way it was actually being used. Sales doubled. (Read more at About.com).

The key here is that rather than cursing the customers, Kleenex responded by showing the product in contexts that made most sense to the consumer. By doing so, they also effectively doubled the consumer base they were targeting, as there weren't many men using makeup that they had to remove.

If people aren't getting your message in the way you intend, don't fall into the Barry Bonds trap and assume your customers are a bunch of morons. Instead, be like Kleenex. Listen to your customers and respond by giving them what they're already telling you they want. - Cam Beck

Comments

[Jim Stroup]

This is a terrific post, Cam, making a really important point in an effective way.

It seems, however, that as many examples of organizational or inwardly-focused myopia used to dispel this sort of mistake, it continues to be made.

Your pairing of these two examples is a really effective way to drive home the point, though.

Thanks for a great presentation of the issue!

[Cam Beck]

Thank you, Jim. Do you ever wonder how many in the inner circle of these myopic people actually try to contradict them?