A simple technique for writing punchy slogans

Yesterday, some friends circulated a new Hewlett-Packard ad.

With an amazing end line: ‘Accelerating next’.

I marvelled at this tightly written piece of communication.

I wondered if I could crack their secret and use it myself.

Now HP is a top company.

Really smart people who make great computers.

And then it struck me – one of their computers probably wrote this.

I wondered if I could get my hands on one of these wonderful ‘Accelerating next’ machines.

I started looking around.

Seems quite a few people have found the same computer already.

Hankook Tyres – who I’ve picked on before – ‘Driving Emotion’.

Or those wonderful, abstract Japanese T-shirts that have equally concise, witty creative collisions.

(I hadn’t realised HP was so big in Japan :)

You, too, can write material like this.

And you don’t need Copy School or even a computer.

Why not build your own slogan generator?:

1.Get a hat that’s deeper than it is wide (so you can’t peek inside). 2. Find pretentious words randomly in your dictionary. 3. Toss them in. Draw them out 2 at a time. 4. Hey Presto (no, that’s taken already) you’ll have instant punchy lines 5. Hold them up against the Japanese T-Shirts. If they pass the ‘sufficiently bizarre' test, you’re onto a winner. 6. Present it with conviction – Clive Pompous-arse style - and no one will argue lest it should appear they’re not as bright as you. Or…

You could find yourself a genuinely good writer. (They’re rare these days)

Someone who truly cares about communicating.

Someone like Paul or Sharon:

“Every generation should live better than the last” (Paul Fishlock for Westpac Bank)

“The simple things in life are often the best” (Sharon Howard for Kellogg’s Corn Flakes)

As much as Management-speak tries to infiltrate and mutilate our language, don’t let it invade your communication.

If in doubt, eavesdrop on normal people.

Listen to the way they speak.

If you love ads, please buy a steak from Norman

Good people at the Norman: I’m coming to get my steak

Medium-rare, please.

This is an entirely emotionally driven and illogical post.

Because that’s how humans are. Emotional. And illogical.

And that’s how great ads work – hitting System 1 - the non-thinking brain.

Enchanting, amusing, speaking to emotional me (and you).

Picture this: I’m on my way to Brisbane airport by cab after a day’s business

We pass a poster – too fast for me to photograph (if you’re in BrisVegas and it’s there still please shoot it for me). Looks a bit like this:

It’s for a well-known Brisbane steak restaurant.

It is deceptively simple – a shot of a set of horns.

And a gorgeous line of copy:

‘Brisbane’s worst vegetarian restaurant’

I haven’t been back to Brissie yet.

When I do. I absolutely have to have a steak at The Norman.

To thank them for renewing my faith in advertising.

I loved the line.

I loved the Insight behind it.

I loved the pure Chutzpah.

I loved the courage.

I loved the recognition that people are bright and don’t need to be told stuff in a conventional, literal and boring way to ‘get it’.

I intend to reward them for making me scramble for my camera.

And for giving me a great smile to top off a great day.

Please reward them too, if you get the chance.

I’m dying to get my steak to see if it’s as good as the ad says. (Trust me, it says precisely that).

Completely irrational, I know.

Just like most other people.

Small advertiser putting the big end of town – that’s Agencies and clients alike – to shame.

While everyone else is making advertising that is barely medium, these guys are doing stuff that’s just - well - rare.

John le Carré’s key lesson for Business

I had put on a fair bit of weight over the years.

I ran into a man I hadn’t seen for ages.

‘I can see they’ve been keeping you in the top paddock’, he said.

That’s the Australian way of speaking – and I love it.

Laid back. Open. Unpretentious. Gorgeous wit.

Spend time among people – at sporting grounds, in shopping malls, country towns, near worksites, in factories or supermarkets.

Anywhere real folk hang out.

Watch. Listen.

And you get the hang of it.

Fast.

But we get it wrong so often:

I was watching a Rugby League match on TV a few days ago.

In Australia, it’s the ‘working class’ game. (Saying that is not offensive).

I’m sorry to pick on Hankook – the tyre people. But painted slap, bang in the middle of the field for spectators and TV viewers was a Hankook Tyres ad.

It read: ‘Hankook. Driving Emotion.’

For tyres.

I ask you.

(With tears in my eyes.)

What on earth does that actually mean?

What does it mean to a Rugby League-watching audience?

A car or truck tyre ‘driving emotion’?

Are we hinting at carrying your loved ones safely?

The heart-in-your-throat rush of high speed?

No. I don’t think that’s the answer.

It could be one of a few things: defining too lofty a Brand Purpose, perhaps.

Trying to be too smart with copy. And ending up pretentious and meaningless.

Unforgivable when there’s been: ‘Stick with Dunlop’. Or the Michelin Man. (See, you can communicate benefits simply and successfully in tyre world.)

The insidious advance of bullshit language in meetings, maybe?

John le Carré said: "A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world."

Therein lies the truth, I suspect.

We would all do ourselves, and our employers a great favour if we spent more time away from our desks and more time simply observing and listening to real people.

You know – end users of your products and services.

My friend Ryan Wallman is a copywriter by trade and a psychiatrist by training. With a razor wit. And an eagle eye for nonsense that pretends, and fails, to communicate.

He shared this gem. Written in a letter from a leading Department store to its customers:

'We are investing in New Myer over the next five years to deliver a fresh interpretation of our brand, a re-energised and relevant range, improved service and  in-store experiences complemented by a strong omni-channel offer. It brings the best of Myer to the customers who love us today, and to future generations'

What were they thinking?

Who did they imagine was going to read it?

I’m very sure they’ve worked hard at their transformation program. I’m sure there have been countless meetings. I know it will be good.

But they know - and I know - that their customers are after the magic of a great store, helpful advice, a great range etc.

Nobody will ever ask them for, or tell their friends about: ‘a fresh interpretation of our brand’.

What does a ‘re-energised range’ mean to people in Moonee Ponds?

Which customers in outer Western Sydney are hanging out for ‘a strong omni-channel offer’?

No.

Down to earth expressions like: ‘not the sharpest knife in the drawer’, ‘off with the Pixies’ come to mind.

That’s how customers might have responded – if they cared enough about the communication to read beyond the first handful of words which offered them precisely nothing.

Empathy.

That’s the name of the game.

And it’s not to be found at your desk. Or in your meeting room.

Get out there.

Use mouth and ears in the ratio the good Lord gave them to you.

Is your Company incentivising people to stifle growth?

Ever sat in a meeting with people who are actively trying to suffocate growth?

(Not in a good way – like reducing bad behaviour)

I have.

I was appalled. But I understand they were just playing the system.

Here’s what was happening:

We were discussing the Marketing calendar for the next year – in around May.

The business in question had experienced a run of success – after some lean years.

People were earning good bonuses once more.

This team, though, were intent on dampening sales growth for the last quarter of the year we were in.

Why?

Why, when growth had been so hard to find?

Why, when momentum was running their way?

Why, when they were the darlings of their network?

Disturbingly simple really.

These guys figured that each year they excelled made the base upon which the next year’s bonus would be set, higher. (This period vs same period last year etc.)

Because they’re only bonused for short-term growth they were colluding to make sure they beat this year’s hurdle – but not so well that next year’s bonus might be hard to earn.

Basically, putting the brakes on growth.

Without disclosing who my client had been, I described it to one of the nation’s leading experts in Retailing. Steve shook his head and told me he had seen the same thing play out in more places than you’d imagine.

The answer – on the face of it – seems obvious: a better balance of long and short-term incentives.

Two things conspire to defeat this idea:

Firstly, the average tenure of senior Marketing folk is relatively short. Secondly, the Behavioural Scientists would quickly point out the reduced potential for more distant gains to motivate people. (Ironically, you might argue their perspective had a longer time frame than the incentive programme, already.)

I used to rail against what I saw as ‘stock market-induced short-termism’. It was a visceral reaction to the focus on short-term sales over brand building.

I now realise the problem is that and more.

It may lead to the deliberate ‘management’ of today’s numbers to benefit individuals over shareholders. Especially when businesses are in growth.

A throttling of shareholder value.

The very system the City has imposed to ensure ongoing returns might well be dampening returns.

Makes me feel a little sick.

Marketers: what you say is not what they hear

Before the tragedy of 9/11, it was common for a Captain on a long haul flight to take a stroll through the cabin and chat to passengers.

To illustrate the difference between message and out-take (stimulus and response – a concept a old as the hills) we’d tell a story:

Captain on a 747 – over the middle of the ocean – steps out of the flight deck. He looks up and sees the passengers looking at him enquiringly. For some weird reason he says:

‘It’s all good. Everything’s just fine.’

That’s his intended communication.

But his passengers are not all the same. Some are nervy fliers. Some are experienced and confident. He has no real idea who he’s talking to. How they feel at the time. Or what filters – cultural and otherwise - his intended message has to pass through.

Let’s say a third relax and think: “Oh, that’s good news”. Possibly another third react poorly: “Why would he say that? OMG, there’s something really wrong.” (There’s an entire Seinfeld episode here.) The final third shrug their shoulders and think: “What a daft thing to say.”

That’s the danger of focusing on messages/messaging. It’s a danger that attaches to a focus on Propositions, too (unless balanced by equal consideration of the likely Response).

My experience, especially in but not confined to, Government-sponsored communication, is that ‘staying on message’ dominates thinking. Researchers checking out campaigns give the nod to those where people can repeat the message back to them.

Which means they might as well recruit parrots, not people in their focus groups.

Being able to play back the stimulus often bears no resemblance to the response it actually elicits.

In my early days, I was fortunate to train at JWT – one of the cradles of Communications Planning. At the time, their Creative Briefing document was seemingly out of step with the rest of the industry.

It focused everyone on “Desired/Key Response”. It didn’t even have a space on the template for a Proposition.

How do we want people to feel? What do we hope they will do?

Far more important than: What’s our message? What do we need to tell them? What’s the proposition?

So how about we all go back to basics?

Let’s bring the old Marketing 101 Stimulus/Response discussion back into fashion.

Find yourself some of the best stories, fables, advertising, etc. you can lay your hands on. And confirm for yourself how easily people are able to extract a message without being told it directly. How much more readily they remember it because they’ve been invited to process it/participate, not just memorise it.

Any doubts remaining? Go back to the oldest example in the book: do the great comedians get there by telling people they’re funny?

Or by telling a great joke?

Response first. Then the stimulus most likely to elicit it.

Is your Brand/Organisation in a Graveyard Spiral?

There is a lethal condition in flying.

It’s called the Graveyard Spiral.

You get into it without realising it. And it is bloody hard to get out of it unless you correct early.

It parallels precisely what I see in Brands, in businesses and in entire categories.

Besides – now I’m flying almost full-time – I’m more acutely aware of it than ever before.

Here’s what happens in flying – see if you can spot any parallels in your business:

When a pilot can’t see the horizon (in cloud or a moonless night, for example) a slight drop in a wing goes unnoticed. Fluid settles in his/her ears and the pilot believes they’re flying ‘wings-level’.

With a wing drop comes the beginnings of a nose drop.

Until the plane is in a downward spiral.

Just like water going down a drain.

But your ears let you think you’re OK – fluid settles nicely.

The clue is on your ‘dashboard’ - altimeter is unwinding fast. Wind noise becoming a howl. Compass spinning.

Act impulsively to stop the descent – you pull the wings off. Don’t act – well they retrieve you with a butter knife.

What does this have to do with business, you may be thinking:

I worked on brands in the boxed chocolate category years back.

Sales slipped a little. So they trimmed back on the advertising. Which made sales slip a little further. So we trimmed back on packaging – got rid of the little list of types of chocolate, removed foil from some of the individually wrapped sweets. So they felt a little less special.

Sales slid further.

High ground appeared through the murk – actually it was the rapid growth of Ferrero Rocher.

Where are brands like Black Magic, Dairy Box, Milk Tray, Quality Street?

Being scraped up with a butter knife.

You’ve seen it in organisations, too, I’m sure.

You know the pattern: revenue slips, they shed some people. They replace them with cheaper folk. Who try hard but have a little less to offer. So they lose a bit more revenue. And trim some more costs.

Shrinking their way to greatness.

In the coming weeks, I take my Command Instrument Rating test. I will wear a hood so I can’t see the outside world.

The testing officer will ask me to look down into my lap. Fly a few S-turns so I'm well and truly disoriented. Put the ‘plane into a spiral. Ask me to recover.

I will need to have my wits about me, study the dashboard.

Make a decision. Just like a Brand or Business in strife.

Continue downward? Break the spiral?

Do you know the 2 fundamental laws of Marketing?

I’d imagine at least 50% of the world’s marketers were reared on Prof. Kotler’s books – prescribed reading at a huge number of Universities. The primary course text when I taught 2nd and 3rd year students.

I’m stunned when I talk about the 2 fundamental laws of Marketing – a Kotler idea – and get blank looks.

This post will necessarily be short - the concept is very tight and needs little expansion beyond reminding folk who’ve forgotten.

Here they are:

The law of slow learning: People take a while to learn a new concept. For it to become a part of System 1 (the brain’s autopilot) it may take a few uses of a product or service and perhaps a few exposures to communication.

If we layer the increased ‘noise’ people are trying to opt out of, and fragmentation, this law teaches us to persevere. At minimum a reminder that ideas wear out in our boardrooms way faster than in ‘consumer-land’.

The law of fast forgetting: Most people don’t give a damn – about your company, your brand, or your campaign. Most of the time they’re not trying to create a relationship with you or your products and services. In fact, most of the time, they’d prefer to opt out. Prefer not to think. Prefer not to have us trying to ‘engage’ them.

It follows in the case of the vast majority of brands, products, services and campaigns, that they are here today and forgotten tomorrow.

Consider what they’re up against. They’re competing for attention with life. Life in all its richness. With all its really important things. Against this, most brands and campaigns are trivial and not deserving of mental storage space.

The 2 laws, taken together, call for impactful ideas. Ideas that resonate strongly within the broader context of life and the culture. Reinforced - as good relationships are – by the right amount of relevant contact.

If there were a ‘Maslow’ hierarchy of Marketing thinking, these 2 laws would form the bottom layer, in my view.

Here’s why the Market Leader has to be the Challenger

Everybody wants to be the Challenger. Everybody wants to work for a Challenger.

The Virgin taking on BA.

It’s the romantic and/or sexy thing to do: be David versus Goliath.

People like Adam Morgan have done  work which makes Challenger strategy highly seductive. It’s also very good.

What most don’t realize is the Market Leader - assuming it wants to remain leader – has the most pressing need to behave like a Challenger. Pretending it’s number 2, desperate to beat number 1.

The only strategy the Leader has – given they’re already out in front – is to continuously challenge and supersede themselves. If attack is the best form of defense, go ahead and attack yourself.

Here’s a practical example:

Years ago, working with the breakfast cereal leader, we would divide the team up – that’s everyone – media, advertising, sales, NPD, packaging etc folk. We’d become the ‘shadow’ team for a competitor. Each team would make believe they worked for an enemy. They’d do factory visits, apply for jobs and try to get an interview, talk to friendly retail buyers, etc.

Then they’d develop the strategy they thought would most harm their real employer.

We’d gather after a few weeks, review the stuff most likely to harm us, and do it to ourselves, first

But you dare not – as leader – let yourself start being led by followers. With one exception: threatening competitive moves should be countered – swiftly and determinedly (more on that in ‘Marketing Warfare’ by Ries and Trout: an oldie but a goodie).

Here’s a shocker I was involved with:

I was embedded as a strategy consultant in our leading grocer. There are 2 major newspapers available to the grocers in Sydney. Each reached 50% of newspaper readers. My client only advertised in one of the titles - the Telegraph. So I asked why that was so. Could it be that our shoppers are skewed to the Tele?

The answer horrified me – as it will, you:

‘Coles (smaller and weaker at the time) have shown no interest in using the Herald’.

The obvious conclusion is that Coles had become – by proxy – the authors of Woolworths’ strategy. Woolworths’ strategy had become derivative. And so it continues: Coles did a big red hand. Woolies did a green boxing glove. Coles did ‘Down, Down’. Woolies followed with Cheap, Cheap.

The Leader becomes the follower. At best they’re ‘Colesworth’ (consumer language, not mine). At worst, Coles is now seen to be the thought leader.

Which is lethal given a pattern I’ve seen all too often: Thought Leader becomes Brand Leader. Brand Leader becomes Share/Sales Leader.

To both of them I’d say Aldi is looking very dangerous. Can you bring yourselves to ‘Aldi yourself’ before Aldi, Aldi’s you.

Who among you most wants to lead?

Truly amazing Innovation needs a Building 20

What kind of conversation do you imagine happens when Noam Chomsky (linguist) meets up with Amar Bose (acoustics/audio) and Paul Samuelson (economist) at morning tea?

This kind of gathering was a regular feature of Building 20 at MIT during and post WWII. Some of the most amazing breakthroughs – in wide-ranging, disparate fields of knowledge – occurred as a result.

It was partly due to the building. And partly due to the unusual diversity in the people it housed and the way they rubbed up against one another.

If you’re charged with fresh thinking, if you’re after real breakthrough, take some simple lessons from this humble building – described in this way by Prof Jerry Lettvin (Electrical Engineering and Bioengineering):

‘You might regard it as the womb of the Institute. It is kind of messy, but by God it is procreative!’

Lesson 1: Space for creativity

Building 20 was erected (constructed is too grand a term) and always meant to be temporary. It went up cheaply and in a hurry – mainly to house the guys of the Radiation Laboratory. (They perfected Radar in the early 1940s.) Soon Linguistics moved in. A Nuclear Science Lab. An Electronics Research Lab. The Educational Research Center. Missile Guidance specialists. And some world class Economists – among others.

The ‘temporary’ mindset prevailed. People were assigned rooms in unconventional fashion – not clustered together by faculty as is typically the case. They congregated at the first ever vending machines. They met and formed friendships. Conversation and debate ensued. ‘Weird’ collaborations emerged.

Lesson 2: Complexity requires collaboration

The more specialised we become, the less likely it is that one person, acting alone, can make big breakthroughs. Building 20 formed the perfect platform for people who knew almost everything there was to know – albeit in a very specialised field - to rub together and open one another’s eyes to ideas, work-arounds, modifications and tensions that simply weren’t in their prior experience.

In a world where you collaborate and succeed, or fail alone, the most amazing collaborations ensued.

Lesson 3: Connected, but very different, participants

A while back, in conversation with a really smart colleague, I remarked that our game was becoming increasingly like an orchestra. Conducting lots of very different characters. He pushed it further. Jazz, he said. More improvisation. Fewer people. Connected by the music. But playing completely differently. Improvising much more.

Brian Uzzi, the sociologist, supports this. His research - looking at musicals - is pretty clear: he looked at hundreds of teams involving thousands of artists. He found that the relationship among collaborators was key: too close and they broke no new ground. If they didn’t know each other at all, they struggled to work together and exchange ideas.

Your Building 20

This chaos – induced mainly by a ‘temporary mindset’ – yielded countless mind-blowing breakthroughs. Nine Nobel laureates, too.

Pixar is simply a more modern version of Building 20. Steve Jobs’ design ensured that artists, computer boffins and writers would rub shoulders often.

You’d be surprised how much difference you can bring to your business simply by enabling your Chomskys, Boses and Samuelsons to collaborate.

It takes: The right physical Space. A celebration of Diversity. The Fusion of different skillsets. A common language to support collaboration. The Social connection that fosters trust.

How messing with Brand Personality kills brands

Our family butcher developed a brain tumour when I was quite young.

In the process of removal, his brain was damaged. Irreversibly.

He was the same man – physically. But he suffered a major personality change.

The tragedy played out before us as if in slo-mo: the poor devil lost most of his friends. In the end, his long-suffering, loyal and devoted wife left him.

It wasn’t a matter of choice as much as this was no longer the man she’d married.

We attribute human-like properties to brands – anthropomorphising – as a way of explaining how best we think they work. As long as we recognise we’re using metaphor, we can proceed.

Here’s where there is huge potential to stuff up:

Picture the scenario - our brand is slowly losing relevance. Someone helpfully suggests it’s an issue of ‘tone of voice’ or ‘brand personality’. And we start tinkering.

It’s a bit like pre-Charlie Teo* brain surgery. Fiddle a bit and hope you get it right.

Here’s the thing. The brand is like poor old Mr Slabbert – the butcher. Muck with its personality without due care and you know the outcome.

It’s brutally swift. Our ‘System 1 brain’ is happy to admit or dismiss brands based on ‘I like it/I don’t’. No correspondence entered into. And it does this relatively easily. Without thinking. A brand goes from ‘feels right’ to ‘feels wrong’ pretty easily.

There is no question: we can run projective research and allow people to paint a very clear picture of a brand’s personality. We can show those who weren’t alive in its formative years various stimuli e.g. packaging, old ads etc. And they can form a perfect picture of the brand – who it is/was like, what it thought was important, etc. (Yes, we’re still talking in metaphor).

If needed we can express the brand’s personality as it was. Or we can dust it off and express it in more contemporary fashion. Taking great care to maintain the fidelity of its underlying personality.

These days I prefer building/explaining brands using Purpose and Values. (I find this to be more all-of-brand than mostly Marketing.)

For those who are more comfortable with Positioning and Personality please remember this: they are strategic. Both are core to a brand’s Identity.

Tone of voice may change – on sale/not on sale etc. But the core tenets of positioning and personality remain unchanging. For one simple reason, they exist in consumers’ memory. Not actually in the brand itself. They’re a consumer response to what the brand does/ doesn’t do over time.

When you set out to ‘change personality’, this necessarily leads to behaviour change – a bit like Mr Slabbert.

Any time someone feels tempted, please tell them the story of the simple butcher whose personality and behaviours changed – through no fault of his own.

The man who lost his loose acquaintances first, and his most loyal fans soon after.

In marketing terms: first light users, then loyalists.

If you’re still intent on modifying personality be very, very careful.

To make diversity work, you need Design Thinking

Ever been in a workshop where people spot a ‘stranger’ in the group. In their demeanour you know exactly what those people are thinking:

Who are they? What could they possibly know about our issue/business? How can they be any use?

Yet, we all know how powerful diversity can be. How hard it is to break out of today’s pattern of thinking when all the people in the room are identical.

Even a group of clones of an exceptionally bright person is still terribly one-dimensional. I grant you, there will be a range of issues they’ll solve brilliantly.

But – as a group - they’re totally inept when confronted by something very different or by the need to conjure up something very different.

And that’s one major reason why you need a diverse group of people. With diverse thinking styles – all mashed together.

Diversity, you see, is an Intellect Multiplier.

But only when the diverse group collaborates well.

The more we specialise – and diverge – the more we seem to build walls around ourselves. Walls built of set thinking patterns, set beliefs, and impenetrable jargon.

The good folk at Stanford’s d.school explain Design Thinking in a way that captures one of its primary features brilliantly: they talk about it as ‘a common language that helps diverse groups come together and collaborate’.

The education system drums our belief in ourselves as creative thinkers out of us. So many of us think that we can only make leaps in ‘our’ fields of expertise.

Invited onto someone else’s turf we’re intimidated. We close down. We (and they) feel we can’t possibly contribute.

Beyond it’s empathetic process, Design Thinking unifies. Conducted well, it permits wildly divergent groups to nudge one another to a better place.

If you’re unfamiliar with it, don’t worry. There is so much online. Including most of Stanford’s materials – generously made available at no cost.

It’s not the kind of discipline you have to be (overly) trained in to have a go.

Follow the d.school, read a bit, watch some Youtube tutorials on the topic, perhaps enrol in an OpenIDEO program.

Then simply “take action” – Stanford d.school’s war cry – you and the disparate gang you’ve assembled. Very soon, the strangers won’t seem strange.

Time to improve Marketing Industry education

I was gently bullied by some well-meaning University staff. A few years ago.

I gave as good as I got.

Not out of spite, but because I was horrified at what they were doing.

Here’s a true story:

Two academics (strength in numbers?) from a University that prides itself on teaching Marketing and Advertising visited me. They said:

“We’ve come to see you because you’re a respected Head of Planning. We’d like to show you our new syllabus.”

They added: “we’ve shown it to number of Agency MDs and they love it.”

I skim-read their pride and joy as they sat with me 

And said to them: “You’re not going to like this very much, but – with great respect - I think it’s terrible”.

You see succumbing to pressure (perceived or actual) they’d developed a way to produce job-ready graduates – kids who know how to do what Agencies/Marketers do now.

Which might suit the expedient among us. Might work short-term. But does nothing for our future.

Here are the facts: We are learning so much, so fast, that the bulk of stuff students learn in the 1st year of a 4 year degree is out-dated by their 3rd year.

In fact, Universities are preparing students now for jobs that don’t yet exist, using technology we haven’t yet cracked which will solve problems we haven’t yet identified as problems. 

My own Agency – particularly the office I’m based in - is vastly different to when I joined – three and a half years back (approximate duration of a degree, as it happens). 

No. I am more convinced they were wrong each passing day.

In the Agency (or Marketing department) we can teach people how to run traffic, brief people, edit ads, etc.

Point of fact – like going from high school to University – they’ll learn more about how/what in 6 weeks with us than at University in 6 months.

My academic friends, I ask you with all the humility I can muster, please teach our kids how to think. Equip them to build the Marketing/Advertising business that we’ll come to need. Not just the business we’re currently in. 

Stretch their minds. Stimulate them. Turn out critical and imaginative thinkers.

Give us bright, curious, young folk who can walk in and show us how to stop doing what we’ve been doing. 

Give us flexible, resilient folk who can invent the future as they live it.

If you won’t take my advice, take it from my former boss, Rob Lee. You see years before this, I taught Marketing and Advertising at a University.

Captains of Commerce & Industry would often needle Prof. Lee: “There’s no education like good experience.” they’d say.

And he’d always respond: “And there’s no experience like a good education”.

Go on then.

Look to the great Universities of the world and ask yourself: ‘exactly what should a great Marketing/Advertising education look like?’

What if your Loyalty program is really a Disloyalty Program?

I have loads of points accumulated in so-called loyalty programs.

I bet you have too.

But I wonder how many of those companies make you feel special? How many seem to know you well? How many treat you as a person, not just a sale? How many use their data brilliantly – so you get offered stuff they know you’ll probably like. And don’t have your time wasted with stuff that’s obviously not for you?

The debate that raged when I was at University – the good Lord was still in short pants then – is not resolved. (In fairness, some of the best marketers have got it down pat, but a great many still haven’t).

Many still think a pattern of repeat purchasing behaviour represents loyalty.

Now it might. But don’t assume it does.

A lot of the time it’s merely Behavioural loyalty. Often times it lacks the second dimension needed for sustainable loyalty – real share of wallet though share of heart.

That is Emotional loyalty.

Many so-called loyalty programs are either simple bribery or slow-burn sales promotions. Issuing some form of points or credits in return for desired behaviour.

The ‘loyalty’ to these programs is false.

It is loyalty to the currency, not to the brand.

I mostly fly Qantas. I happen to like Qantas. Frankly, I have a mountain of Frequent Flyer points with the airline. Assuming I had no emotional bond with them, I could buy a few hundred toasters with points and move to Singapore Airlines or Virgin.

Tomorrow.

What has kept me is not the points. It’s my liking for the airline.

That is key. True share of wallet comes from share of heart. Winning share of heart demands both Emotional and Behavioural Loyalty.

More recently, though the Frequent Flyer program has started sending me wine offers. I am not a wine person. I don’t think I’ve opened a single Qantas wine EDM.

They annoy me when they land in my Inbox. Repeatedly.

They prove to me that the airline actually doesn’t know me. Isn’t learning anything about me. And is putting it’s interests before mine.

Our relationship is changing: they are starting to run down all their points in my ‘emotional points account’.

If they continue this way much longer, toasters and their major competitor are going to become increasingly attractive.

Am I saying loyalty/rewards programs don’t work? Not at all.

I am asking those who have, or want to create, a loyalty program to think on this from Jon Ingall:

“Loyalty schemes themselves do not create loyalty. They are simply a means to an end. The primary function of a loyalty scheme should be to provide the company with customer data that can be used to improve its products and services. It is this that, ultimately, will improve loyalty.”

In simple terms, the major reason for a loyalty program is to collect data.

The main reason for collecting data is to help serve customers brilliantly – to ‘know’ them as well as the old corner shop owner used to in simpler times.

That is a powerful way to go beyond ‘surprise and delight’ to devotion.

That is how loyalty programs nurture and retain customers who love you and stay with you forever.

So to my current favourite airline, let me ask this of you: read my data and work me out. Show me my loyalty is well-placed.

Stop focusing on what separates us; study what binds us together

I worked for an Advertising Agency CEO a number of years ago. A real wanker.

I’d have been about 35. He was in his 50s. He drove a Ferrari. I drove a Ford. He had been on the Worldwide Board of a multinational Agency group. I was Head of Planning in a Sydney Agency.

He was on his second marriage. With a second family. I still am in my first marriage (no intention of changing that, either)

You couldn’t find 2 more different people if you tried.

One day I remarked that he and I were in ‘the same market segment’. The horror was writ large across his face.

You see we both had young children. In a life-stage segmentation, we’d have been grouped together. On most criteria - we had nothing in common. In certain areas we were near-identical. We both purchased childcare, children’s clothes, schooling, baby food etc.

My memory of this was triggered by a gorgeous short (1 min.) video posted by Bruce Kasanoff.

Bruce claims to be a millennial.

Have a look (here)

If Bruce is a millennial, I’m Mother Theresa.

That said in jest,  you’ll see that Bruce shares a lot in common with so-called millennials.

He makes a great point. You see, we’re doing an awful amount of ‘slicing and dicing’ these days.

Often because we can.

Not necessarily because it’s meaningful or productive.

We’re living such segmentation joy. Increased computing power and cheaper computing/software allow us to do this.

We can tell the finest differences between people.

That is only useful if we can adjust our business models and marketing to fit the subtle differences we’ve detected.

Which – in the case, I’d suggest, of 95% of marketers – we can’t.

So we roll our fine slivers of segments back up into groups and offer trade-offs between precise need-satisfaction and marketing capability/convenience.

That’s not so bad. Until we pretend we’re satisfying their needs without any compromise…

So here’s a wild idea: how about we take a lesson from Bruce?

How about we stop hunting for, and marketing to, differences?

How about we start looking for what binds people together, rather than what separates them?

How about we build brands as beacons? Let their light attract people with common values and beliefs toward them – a bit like attracting moths to a flame?

You see, in many respects, tomorrow I will be a millennial, too.

The next day I’ll be more of a Boomer (lowest part of the range, I hasten to add).

The following day, a bit of both. Within minutes.

Let’s stop worshipping blindly at the altar of difference. Let’s pay much more attention to things people have in common.