Dear Charter:

We've been together for more than seven years now and for the most part I have been very happy. My cable, internet and phone all work as expected a majority of the time and even when I've had problems your customer service people have been surprisingly friendly and helpful.

Yet every week or so I get a little note from you in my email that's clearly intended for someone else.

How dare you.

Aside from the really lousy copywriting – "what you're majorly into" is just wrong on so many levels – this email only reminds me how little you actually care about our "relationship."

For seven years I've spent countless hours and thousands of dollars to keep us together. I can't quit you. I must have your precious high-speed internet. Sure I could stop there but then I wouldn't be able to waste all that time watching bad reality shows, irrelevant sporting events and rigged cooking competitions in stunning high definition that come to me courtesy of your coaxial cable.

But, according to this email you're just not that into me anymore. Your love light has turned to new customers who must be better than me since you're willing to let them have you for nearly half of what I'm paying.

Have you ever thought just once about how that makes me feel? Sure, everybody loves the new kid in town, but what about those of us who have stood by your side through the service outages, billing errors and four hour installation windows?

What do I have to do to get your attention? How can we rekindle our relationship? Here are a couple of thoughts.

First, just show a little compassion and stop making your ogling of other customers so obvious. Could you please make sure I don't see the messages you send intended for others who catch your eye?

Second, you know what I watch. You know what I like. How hard would it be to give me a little something-something every once in a while? I wouldn't mind a free on-demand movie or access to the occasional Red Wings game. Use that big data of yours and surprise me.

I'm not asking for much. Just the attention I deserve.

The future of advertising is more advertising

Well, there it is.

Yesterday Facebook announced it would start selling 15-second video ads for as much as $2.5 million per day.

What's surprising about this is not that video ads will now be part of Facebook's everyday experience, but that the only way you'll be able to target your ads is by age and gender.

So basically, they're admitting to the lie they and every other social media platform has been telling advertisers since the invention of the internet and will advertise to their users just like television does, en masse. No geographic targeting. No affinity targeting. No slicing and dicing their reams of data so I can speak to the exact person I want to at the exact moment that matters most.

The one-to-one future is dead, at least for now.

Facebook is a mass-medium and proves that when it comes to marketing. They've proven customization doesn't scale. The platform's only real value is in the aggregate of its users.

Maybe this will change. Maybe when we're all used to seeing spots roll after every 20 posts on our timeline they'll start selling space to local advertisers and microtargeters. If they're selling a few hundred companies a day at a million dollars or more, 365 days a year, however, why would they?

The folks at the networks are breathing a little easier tonight.

Stereotypical marketing

In another of those coincidences where I write about something one day and a brand proves my point the next, we have this quotation in an AdAge article from Harley-Davidson's Mark-Hans Richer about their new campaign #stereotypicalharley:

"There really is no stereotypical customer. That's the whole point of it."

I have criticized Harley-Davidson marketing for parting ways with Carmichael Lynch, the ad agency that saved their bacon in the '80s, and their decision to crowd-source creative ideas for their ads. I still don't believe those decisions will serve the brand well in the long run.

This campaign, however, gets one thing right. It shows how one brand can serve many different demographics by finding something common in all of them. In the article, Mr. Richer says it's about "living the life you choose." That's a politically-correct way of explaining what really binds these people together.

I'd say its about expressing their inner outlaw.

Yes, these people may be teachers, soccer moms, artists, soldiers, etc., but when they get on their Harleys they get to be something else, something the world doesn't ordinarily see. It's obvious from the images in the spot. The riders are not smiling, happy innocents.

These normal, workaday people get on their bikes and suddenly they're a little bit badass.

That's the common bond for the Harley brand. It feeds that archetypal need that exists at some level within all of us to rebel from conformity.

What deep-seated desire can your brand feed? Focus on that and you'll find a way to attract more – and more diverse – people than you ever thought possible to your products.

Attitude is everything

This isn't a new idea, but it's something I still end up talking about more than I should in meetings.

Demographics are not a reliable way to segment your customers and potential customers.

Attitudes are.

Allow me to demonstrate.

Let's say you're selling business menswear, suits, shirts, sport coats, dress slacks. A man walks into your store. He is in his 50s, married lives in the New York City Metro area, and earns more than a million dollars a year.

That could be this guy...

Anthony Bourdain
Celebrity Chef
College dropout

It could also be this guy...

Hugh E. "Skip" McGee III
Chief Executive
BS in Engineering Princeton, JD University of Texas Law School

You're not going to sell them the same suit, the same tie, the same shirt, or shoes. Nor should you sell them in the same way. If you try to, you're going to lose one, the other or both.

It is possible to adapt your messaging and tactics to appeal to distinctly different attitudinal segments. All you have to do is figure out what about your brand is relevant to both and then treat them like individuals.

It's not easy, but it's what the best marketers find a way to do.

Men's Wearhouse makes a mistake

Yesterday, Men's Wearhouse announced the firing of their founder, Executive Chairman and spokesman of 30 years, George Zimmer.

Sales were up 5.1% the last quarter. 

Sales were up 4.4% for the calendar year 2012.

Profits were up over 10% to $2.55 per share.

Those are numbers JC Penney, Sears or Kmart would kill for.

So why did he get fired?

Richard Jaffe, an financial analyst thinks it might be the advertising.

“They continually rework it, adjusting how much presence do we have on George. Does he stand? Does he sit? But it’s always all about George Zimmer — his voice, his physical presence. An old guy with a gray beard may not provide credibility to the product in the eyes of a 22- or 24-year-old.”

If he's right, then the board at Men's Wearhouse is wrong.

Yes, George Zimmer is older than his target, but that doesn't mean he can't connect with them. In fact, based on the performance of the company it looks like he has.

There have been a lot of spokespeople who managed to connect with an audience that didn't look like them. Dos Equis' most interesting man in the world comes immediately to mind. Dave Thomas sold a lot of burgers to 20-somethings. Frank Purdue was the tough man who sold tender chickens to millions of moms.

If being old means you can't sell to younger audiences, The Rolling Stones would be in wheel chairs instead of on tour.

It's not about age, it's about attitude and relevance.

At a time when more and more men are dressing like boys, George Zimmer was that voice that told guys, when you're ready to be taken seriously we're here to help.

It worked.

It worked because he is authentic. It worked because he is honest. It worked because he projects the right combination of authority, empathy and confidence.

Thanks to the board's decision, we're in for a long run of one-off ads while the Men's Wearhouse searches to find a voice as effective as that of Mr. Zimmer.

I guarantee it.

Who's your brand target?

The social media kerfuffle du jour occurred because Michael Jeffries is a smart marketer and a lousy communicator.

Abercrombie & Fitch is successful because Jeffries has a well-defined Brand Target. The problem is, he said it out loud.

"Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong in Abercrombie & Fitch clothes, and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”

Great brands know who they're for and who they're not for. They are both inclusive and exclusive. But as Mr. Jeffries is now learning the trick is to be exclusive without being a jerk.

Apple's brand target appears to be young, cool, creative individuals as is evidenced by the Mac versus PC commercials.



Did this open Apple up to some criticism and ridicule? Yes. Did it mean they wouldn't sell their products to dweebs? Of course not.

A brand target is not a sales target. A brand target is the epitome of who you designed your product for.

A sales target is whoever walks in your door with enough money to buy your product.

Confuse the two at your own risk.

An old flame rekindled

Desire is a funny thing.

We often can't pinpoint when it begins. Yet I can still picture the exact moment I was love-struck by Jaguar. It happened when I came across a British Racing Green E-Type in the paddock of an SCCA Trans Am race at Road America in the early seventies.

I still want one.

Does that make me the perfect target for the new Jaguar F-Type?

Who knows? But after seeing this spot, I wouldn't mind taking one for a test drive to see if I could fall in love all over again.

 

Crafty macrobrews

As we draw nearer to peak beer drinking season (who am I kidding, it's always peak beer drinking season in Wisconsin), the nation's craft brewers are becoming increasingly upset about the faux crafts that have been introduced by the world's two largest brewing conglomerates, Anheuser-Busch/Inbev and SABMillerCoors.

As their mainstream American lagers continue to struggle to maintain market share and margin, A-B and MillerCoors are increasingly putting their energy behind brands like Blue Moon, Third Shift, Shock Top and others. This strategy has helped them increase their overall market share and capture a significant portion of the craft category.

As a result, small local brewers are crying foul and asking that these brewers be required to put their corporate name on the labels of all their products so that beer drinkers will know which crafts are made by craftspeople and which are made by corporations.

How about, no.

You don't get to change the law because the folks at A-B and MillerCoors are smart marketers. It has always been thus. Small, independent, innovative businesses create a new market and the big boys follow quickly to try to capitalize on it.

That's business. If you're not prepared to defend your brand, to continue to prove why you're different, better and special, then be prepared to lose it. 

Will it be easy? No. Can it be done? 

The six pack of Bell's Two Hearted Ale in my refrigerator says yes.

I still prefer the original mobile device

Clearly, I'm old.

While I participate in social media and have many friends on Facebook, followers on Twitter and connections on Linked In, I'd still rather get in my car and go meet them for lunch, a round of golf, coffee, a ballgame or some other activity where face-to-face social interaction occurs.

My first mobile device was my brother's ratty, midnight blue 1969 Camaro RS with a 327, Weber carbs and a Hurst 3-speed that we used to cruise around Northern Michigan.

Today's generation lusts after an iPhone 5 with 64GB of storage, retina display and 8-megapixel iSight camera that shoots 720p HD video. 

This is a problem for carmakers.

Kids are getting behind the wheel later and getting a driver's license is no longer the rite of passage it once was. The passion for both cars and the act of driving are fading from mainstream American culture. The less people care about a category the more commoditized the products become. Thus the car is fast becoming a glorified appliance.

Is it any wonder then that in trying to reach out to teens, Toyota has developed a campaign that focuses on safety...

No wonder no one writes songs about cars anymore.

It's all about the McBrand

According to this story in Ad Age, McDonald's is introducing a new sandwich, the McWrap, to attract the demographic known as the millennials – or as we humans call them, 18 to 32-year olds.

It seems that McDonald's executives are distressed that their restaurant is not one of this group's favorite restaurants. To that, I have just one question.

Outside of the 4 to 10-year old demographic, is McDonald's anyone's favorite restaurant?

McDonald's has grown to massive proportions exactly because it is no one's favorite restaurant. Mickey D's is the vanilla ice cream of restaurants: almost everybody likes it, but nobody loves it.

McDonald's is convenient, consistent, and cheap. That's how they've managed to serve billions.

Of course they should adapt their menu to provide options that will keep the chain relevant and cars lined up at the drive-through. Of course, they should consider other policies that appeal to this and other generations of customers. But if any of those changes get in the way of convenient, consistent and cheap, there will be trouble ahead.

McDonald's faces one of the great challenges of branding, how to adapt without changing.

A funny fail

As I stare out over the water at yet another incredible Wisconsin sunrise from the serene and sandy shores of Lake Michigan, I have only one question.

What they hell were they thinking?

Behold the latest effort from the Travel Wisconsin, my adopted home state's marketing arm.

Directed by Wisconsin native and master of low-brow comedy, David Zucker, the spot is filled with all the slapstick mastery he has displayed in his films Airplane!, Naked Gun, Scary Movies 3 & 4, and BASEketball.

Having been raised on the Three Stooges, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and other slapstick masters, I can tell you that aside from a few continuity errors, this spot is actually quite well crafted. The appearance by Airplane! star Robert Hays is a nice touch.

But does this little comedic gem convince people to spend their hard earned travel dollars in Wisconsin? I'd argue no, and that's not the director's fault. It's the agency's.

Advertising isn't that hard. It really needs to do just three things, two of which this spot does well.

First, great advertising has to grab your attention. Check.

Next, it must be memorable. Check.

And finally it must communicate a message that is relevant to the target and different from the competition. Fail.

The message I get is "any idiot can have fun here."

I'm not sure whether the idiot featured is a native or a visitor, but in either case he works against the objective.

If Mr. Hays is supposed to depict a hapless tourist, then the creators of this spot are making fun of the very people we'd like to come visit. (A quick advertising 101 refresher: never insult the people you're trying to separate from their money.)

If Mr. Hays is supposed to be a Wisconsonite, then he's doing a great job of portraying residents as drunken, simple-minded buffoons with a total lack of self-awareness.

I know the argument will be that the spot is generating a lot of buzz. But as we learned from coca cola yesterday; if you're counting on buzz to make the cash register ring today, you can plan on filing for bankruptcy tomorrow.

Brands with benefits

Apparently my message isn't getting through to some people who manage brands in this country. I realized this when I read this article about Panera Bread's new "Purpose Marketing" campaign.

Purpose marketing, conscious capitalism, cause marketing, or whatever you want to call it, is essentially building the social values and beliefs of your target into your business and focusing on them as a key component of your marketing. It's a great strategy and it works when your purpose is a feature of your product and relevant to your customer.

So what's my problem? This quotation from Mandy Levenberg, VP and Consumer Strategist for the otherwise very cool and useful research company, Iconoculture:

"Consumers are seeking authentic emotional connections with brands."

No, they're not.

People are looking to make choices they can feel good about. They are looking for brands that reflect their values. They are looking for emotional benefits. What they are not looking for is an "emotional connection" or relationship with the brands they buy.

It may be a fine distinction, but it's an important one. Because the minute you think they want a relationship, you start thinking about consumers as friends instead of customers. You start asking what they can do for you, instead of what you can do for them. You start taking them for granted, instead of serving them.

Your social responsibility platform – whether it's paying a living wage, feeding the hungry, using natural and organic products, supporting veteran's organizations, etc. – is a benefit, just like good fuel economy, great taste or low prices. In many cases it is a powerful emotional benefit that tips the scale in your favor and provides context for all the other benefits you offer, as is the case with Chipotle.

It is not the foundation for a relationship.

Your relationship with your customer – and I use that term purposefully as the only business relationship that matters is one in which people trade money for goods and services – is this: Give them a product that works with relevant functional, emotional and social benefits, at a price they're willing to pay and they will give you money. If you do it right they will do it over and over and over again.

Don't for a minute, however, starting thinking that the relationship is anything other than a transaction.

Lincoln finds its way

Back in August 2010 when I was shopping for a new car, I wrote this about whether or not I would put the Lincoln brand on my shopping list.

Doesn't quite seem to have the same mojo as Ford. Now that the company has divested itself of Volvo, Jaguar and Aston Martin they can fix this brand. Until then, OUT

Well, Ford is attempting to fix the brand, starting with a new car, the MKZ, and this new ad campaign.



Despite the challenge of trying to introduce a revamped brand with just one product, I'm inclined to like this effort.

The overall brand positioning feels right. Despite the famous Commander Cody song, Lincolns have never been drivers' cars. They're for people who need to get somewhere but aren't particularly in love with the road. The Continentals and Town Cars of the past ferried the well-heeled in relative luxury and comfort. It's pretty clear from this "introduction" Lincoln doesn't plan on straying too far from that course, only hoping to move their owners from the back seat to the front.

The spot is very well crafted. The blend of past and present feels right. Creating links between classic cars and the new features helps build a credible story (though the idea of a design inspired by the manta ray comes a little out of nowhere for me). This spot exudes quality through its writing, art direction, cinematography and editing which sets the expectation for the car's quality without ever using that over-used and impossible to define word.

Will I consider a Lincoln when I look to replace the Audi? No. The spot makes it clear that if I'm interested in a car that's designed to be tossed into corners at 20 mph over the recommended speed limit I should look elsewhere. And that's okay.

In fact, it's more than okay. It's what great advertising does. It tells me exactly who the brand is for and who it's not for. So while Audi, BMW, Lexus, Infiniti and Cadillac battle for my heart by appealing to my right foot, Lincoln will satisfy a much larger segment of the market by being something different.

It'll be interesting to see if this position is carried out through all the new products they'll be introducing over the next few years and how successful it is in the long run.

There's no such thing as a target market

Marketing, like life, is all about perspective.

How someone views a product, brand or ad all depends on where he or she views it from.

As marketers there is nothing more important than understanding how our customers and potential customers see their world and how our product fits in that world.

The problem is that everyone's perspective, and therefore everyone's world, is different. Individuals may be in the same demographic, they may share attitudes, they may watch the same television shows, bookmark the same websites and read the same magazines, but they are not the same.

Each person is at the center of his or her own universe.

Marketing research has always been designed to put people into groups which leads us to one-size-fits-all, lowest common denominator thinking. 

If you want to create a product or service that's truly special, stop thinking about 'the market' and start thinking about the individuals who make up the market. 

Doing it right

In response to yesterday's post about an atrocious attempt to attract girls to science, here's a spot from TBWA/Chiat/Day and Gatorade that attempts to prevent girls from dropping out of sports programs.



It's not ground breaking, it's not ultra hip, and even though it uses similar imagery to the science video, it doesn't pander.

What it does is effectively communicate the objective and gives you a reason to seek out more information without embarrassing its creators or the people their trying to influence.