Last week, I had dinner with a senior TV exec. He was not only not nervous about the Net, but he was uninterested in hearing about how it might be a threat. Today, Saul Hansell has a great piece in the New York Times about slivercasts and the rapidly changing landscape.
There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s right about many of these issues, but the startling thing is the huge gap between the people with the incentive and resources to take advantage of the shift and the what the market is doing.
Been there, seen that.
March 12, 2006
Brad Kozak writes about the dilemma faced by Martin guitars. How to compete against the rising tide of low-cost import guitars without hurting their brand… novel thoughts.
Ever since my early warning shot about Powerpoint, I’ve noticed an increasing tide of writing about:
a. how much people hate giving presentations
b. how bad they are at it
I just came across a super new book on the topic, Why Bad Presentations Happen to Good Causes. Even if the content wasn’t good (it is) the quality of the printing is so wonderful, it’s a pleasure to hold. (found it courtesy of the insight of Richard Pachter).
Part of what Andy points out is that presentations to groups of 50 or more are usually done by people who aren’t comfortable doing them, and they’re not usually very well received.
Which led to this thought:
The best presentation might be no presentation.
If you’re going to bother to do something, you ought to do it very well indeed. Otherwise, don’t. Don’t show up. Don’t waste your time (or mine.)
"But," you say, "I have to." I have to because my boss said I do, or because I can’t make the sale without it or, best reason of all, because it’s my best chance to be in a position of authority in front of a whole bunch of prospects/influencers/investors/media, etc.
But, if you’re going to do a lousy job…
So, here’s what I’d like you to consider:
Skip straight to the part that people seem to like the best, and that you’re the best at: the Q&A.
Step 1: get a confederate (a helper, not someone from Atlanta) to sit in the audience ready with the first obviously seeded question.
Step 2: Walk onstage. No laptop.
Step 3: "Any questions?"
Step 4: The seeded question is something like: "So, Seth, what have you been up to?"
Answer it. In English. Like the person you are, not the flat, stressed, boring person you become when you have a Powerpoint under your control.
At that point, five minutes into it, you’ve told me an honest human story about why you came and what you’re up to. Now, the audience, sufficiently engaged, will happily pepper you with questions for your entire alloted time.
That’s the way the world really works off-stage. Maybe it would work for you on-stage.
March 10, 2006
What do the Dubai port deal, the numa numa video, Danish cartoons and yellow wristbands have in common?
They all spread because they were easy to spread. At the same time that climate cancer languishes in the background, voters inundate Congress with phone calls about the port deal. And pundits are surprised–shocked!–at how irrational the public is.
Actually, our behavior as people is pretty easy to predict. We like things that are simple, not complex. Issues where we can take action without changing very much. If a marketer brings us a new idea, it’s either ignored or it’s a problem. A problem because we have to do something with the idea. Buy the new suit, trade in for the new car, install a new IT solution or change the way we feel about an issue.
The best problems, as far as a consumer is concerned, are those that can be solved quickly and easily, with few side effects.
Bite sized doesn’t mean small, though. When the stakes are high enough, people are willing to do really big things (like join the Army), if they believe that those big things are in and of themselves sufficient to have an impact on the problem. It’s bite sized, but a big bite.
Why are millions of Americans going to die of preventable diabetes and heart disease every year? Because the action needed to avoid the problem isn’t bite sized. And why did blogging take three years to really take off? Same reason.
Do you trust eBay?
Of course, eBay isn’t one organism… it is a collection of millions of people, some not so nice.
Do a search to buy an LCD monitor. You’ll find thousands of them. So sort by price. Wow, here are a whole bunch for $20, Buy it Now. Wow. Then you look and see that it’s not really a monitor, it’s a list of LCD wholesalers. $20 for a few sheets of paper. Who needs that? And there are more than a few people selling this list. Why?
Okay, let’s try a different category. Here’s one, 19 inches, new in the box, a Dell, only $50 Buy it Now. Wow! Wait, the shipping is $230…
It took me years to realize why people looked at me funny when I told them I was a marketer.
They don’t like us or trust us. No surprise, really.
March 9, 2006
Of course, you’ve heard the objection. "It just costs too much."
Today’s Times reports that 411 accounts for more than a billion calls a year–at just one provider. That’s more than a billion dollars a year being spent for a service that is truly a commodity–you want the number, here it is, bye.
And yet, Easy411 provides precisely the same service to callers for half the price. Why doesn’t everyone use them? Because it’s not just the price. It’s the hassle and the set up and the "I didn’t get around to it" nature of saving a few bucks.
Example 2: check out the parking lot at Costco. Lots of $40,000 or more cars and SUVs in the lot, people who wasted a few shekels worth of gas to drive out of their way to invest an hour of time to save a dollar on a big jar of pickles. These are the same people who will spend an extra $100 on an airplane ticket to save a few minutes in getting home after a meeting.
My point, and I do have one, is that price is a signal, a story, a situational decision that is never absolute. It’s just part of what goes into making a decision, no matter what we’re buying.
Robin Benson points us to The $39 Experiment: Asking Random Companies for Free Stuff.
The gimmick is that someone asked 100 companies for free samples and chronicled the response.
Here’s the surprise: most companies took no action at all.
And a few companies wrote back and said "no."
What does it cost for Del Monte to get someone to notice one of their products, to get someone to think about a product or to even buy one? Now, compare this to the cost of sending someone (who took the time to write) a coupon or two and a letter.
The first takes money. The second takes a little thought and a tiny bit of time.
Marketers shouldn’t fall for every scammer that comes along. But if someone chooses to pay attention, there are countless ways you can invite them to spread the word on your behalf.
Sometimes marketers are so busy yelling at people they don’t even notice inviduals who take the time to raise their hands.
The Grapple is a fuji apple filled with artificial grape flavoring (or maybe real grape designed to taste artificial.) It is remarkable only in the sense that it is such a bad idea and tastes so awful that people cannot help but comment on its stupidty. CiN Weekly – Grape apple=grapple.
March 8, 2006
Peter Payne writes in his newsletter from Japan:
Time and time again I’ve noticed the power the
opinions of gaijin have to effect change in Japan, whether it’s asking to have
a non-smoking section added to a restaurant or pointing out that the restroom
was not as clean as it could be (things Japanese would say "it can’t be
helped" about). Just today, while going to lunch, we spotted a young woman
driving with her 4-year-old daughter who was standing up in the front seat.
The idea of child carseats are still somewhat alien to Japan, a country that
only passed its first carseat law in 1999, and children playing inside moving
cars is something I’ve seen all to often. When we stopped at a light I went
into "seigi no mikata" (champion of justice) mode, got out of the car, and
publicly reprimanded the mother, telling to put her damn child in a seat belt,
at the very least. She immediately complied, embarrassed at being lectured
while people in the surrounding cars looked on.
###
Of course, it’s not just Japan and it’s not just car seats. There are countless things in your products and services that are there because it can’t be helped. As soon as you open yourself to interactions with the market (real interactions, not deniable forms) you discover that a lot of stuff can be helped.
No, not that kind.
Apple is now starting to sell 16 tv shows for one low low price. You get the fresh one, and the rest are delivered as they become available.
A long time ago, I called this the milkman’s return. Home delivery of milk was a great idea because it spread the cost of making a sale over many, many items.
It’s too easy to focus on the one-shot. Instead, someone in the serial business understands that once you’ve got subscribers, you can spend all your time finding products for your customers instead of searching for customers for your products.
