The snick of the penpoint across the page is proverbial. Familiar, like a casual friend. It’s been awhile. But he’s back. And it feels good to hear him. See him. Sense him. Be wary of him. (The pen can get a guy into trouble. And that may be happening right now…)
This morning in The Extra Hour that comes with the first dawn of Daylight Time’s death, I’ve been making coffee. Preparing to make coffee. Readying the little pot for when my little wife shuffles up the stairs of our little home and into the little hours of the new morning. This Extra Hour brings bonus time for focus. But…on what? The diminutive details. Like the spoon in the espresso-grind bag of dark-roast Hispanic-heritage coffee that folks routinely mistake for Cuban but was founded by an entrepreneur Spaniard and is as American as the Brooklyn Bridge and born in the Bronx. In this silvery spoon, the dark, powder-fine grains of deep-brown black heap to a precarious peak and hold before dropping into the filter. Why is it I never noticed that except here in The Extra Hour? And speaking of The Extra Hour, the kitchen clock has been losing time. Like, maybe it’s trying to get that hour back. I go and grab a double-A battery from the place where I keep the recording gear. I take that battery to the clock and replace the old one that’s there. The old one has an unusual, unidentifiable label. It’s some imported battery brand not available to the general public and is sold only to the manufacturers of a giant-faced clock that is operated by a tiny electric motor fueled by the second littlest of the standard-size single-cell cylindrical dry batteries known to man. It is also double-A trash. “Thunk” into the can. It sounds as if it struck soft into yesterday’s damp coffee grounds. And the snick of the penpoint across the paper in The Extra Hour brings a question: What now? And what does this have to do with advertising anything? Simple. Do you find yourself challenged by trying to create copy that’s surprising, engaging or is candy to the ear? Try paying big attention to little details. For a moment, forget the sell and focus. Drill down into the sounds and the sensations. Just take a breath and… Hold. Listen. This is not a meditation. This is a moment. A moment is a brief period of time. It is also a force in physics. For example, the force it takes for an object to resist inclination and return to position is called a righting moment. But here, let's call this our writing moment. Take that moment to hear what happens. Feel the space. It is rich with the subtle force of soft sensations and quiet things going on--even in a crowded room. (Why do so many writers like working in cafés and bars? It’s not because they’re quiet…) There is a copy culprit to whom we all fall victim. We don’t take the time. We’re losing minutes. We rush into the creation of busy words that fill the space instead of filling the ear and on into the heart. It happens in so many ways. A lack of care. A lack of question. A lack of sight and sound. We ask ourselves, How hard can we push this motivational boulder over the top so it comes crashing down on our customer, smashing into the crazy conviction that there has never been a better time to rush in and buy now. That is, after all, the common question. But it yields an answer that nobody needs. That’s because… It’s not the question the customer is asking. Right now, our culture is awash in noise. Everyone is shouting. Nobody is listening. So shut down your computer. Take a pen. Grab some paper. And… Scribble the words--the ones that come when you start to feel the room and see the shapes and feel in your gut the whims being whispered at you. Grasp the gold that’s just lying there for the taking and see how it suddenly informs your mission--which may not even be yet defined. That is, after all, how we ended up here in The Extra Hour... LIGHTNING BRANDING ON AMAZON The Kindle edition of our new book is now available at Amazon for the bargain price of $19.95. For details about our new Lightning Branding courses, both do-it-yourself and we-do-it-with-you editions, click here. (There's even a video of us!) Cheers, Blaine Parker Your Lean, Mean Creative Director in Park City
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When customers can see themselves in the advertising, they have reason to pay attention...
And sometimes, they do the advertising for you. This missive is born of surprise. When confronted with a spontaneous marketing juggernaut, it’s best to roll with it. The Fabulous Honey Parker and I have a new and untested product. And customers are lining up on social media to share photos and talk about it. They’ve also never been asked to promote the product, nor have they been incentivized to do so. These customers have nothing obvious to gain. And they’re helping compensate for marketing that’s been handled upside down and backwards. As mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Honey has released her debut novel. When marketing a book, you’re supposed to start six months before you release it. But six months ago, this book wasn’t even an idea. It was a spontaneous conception resulting from current circumstances. A book publishing veteran we know said, “Great idea. But it has to be on the market by October. No traditional publisher can do that. You have to self-publish.” So it was written at lightspeed and put onto the market. And, go figure, the fans are promoting it. Why are people around the country sharing photos of themselves with this book? I have a theory. But then, you already knew that. The Honey Parker brand is very strong. The woman likes to make friends and is happy to be social. Moreover, she has created a fiction brand that the customer wants to be a part of. People want to be in this club. The club is rallying around a book called, Carefulish: A Ridiculous Romp Through COVID-Living As Seen Through The Eyes Of Ridiculous People. The customer needs a laugh--and gets much more. The book is a comedy, but goes deeper than just cheap laughs. The book is also topical, touching the zeitgeist without ever getting political. And the book’s cover is very graphic, designed to pop from the page when it’s seen on Amazon. The cover image is a black COVID mask with a martini glass on it. The brand is Careful-ish and people want to play. Would this have happened if the book had been called, Laugh, It’s A Pandemic? Would it have worked if the cover image were a bland photo of a discarded disposable mask? Would people be flocking to it and sharing it if it was unremarkable? We can’t say for sure. But a safe guess is: No. What my wife has done is brought clarity of thought to the ONE way she wants her CORE CUSTOMER to FEEL about this brand. Her core customer is Smart, Sassy Woman. What's the one way she wants Smart, Sassy Woman to feel? That it's OK to laugh about living through a pandemic. And it’s working. Smart Sassy Woman is jumping onboard the Careful-ish train and going for the ride. She’s enjoying it. And she’s telling her friends. Honey Parker has entered into a conversation her customer is already having. And she’s done it using masks and martinis. This is where we turn back to the broken ads I solicited a couple of weeks ago. (No, I haven’t forgotten about y’all.) What’s happening in the broken ads is a lot of writing that’s caught up in selling. Not much of it is caught up in joining the customer. (Some of it is trying, of course. It's all born of honest effort.) And yes, it IS harder to create a club around something that seems mundane, like floor covering. But that’s our job as marketers. We must take the mundane fruit we’ve been handed and squeeze out the sweetest possible juice. Does your advertising make the customer feel like joining the club is a good thing? As proposed last week, if you can’t see the customer in your advertising, it isn’t advertising yet. When the customer sees themselves in the advertising, they have reason to pay attention. When the customer feels the right way about the brand, they can care about the sell, and care about joining the club. Are you feeling the customer’s pain? Are you feeling good about the relief you’re providing? Not every advertiser seems remarkable. But inside, when you dig deep enough, something remarkable will be there--even if it’s just an obsession with something mundane and very necessary. Find the remarkable, and you’re on your way to finding gold. To find out more about Careful-ish, you can click here to be taken to Amazon. LIGHTNING BRANDING ON AMAZON The Kindle edition of our new book is now available at Amazon for the bargain price of $19.95. For details about our new Lightning Branding courses, both do-it-yourself and we-do-it-with-you editions, click here. (There's even a video of us!) Cheers, Blaine Parker Your Lean, Mean Creative Director in Park City Where's Waldo, and can you feel him? He's gotta be in there somewhere...
Have you written an advertisement? Can you see your customer in there? Can you see the customer’s problem? Can you see the solution? Can you see your customer feeling good about calling you? No? Then you haven’t written an ad yet. And, hint: making the customer feel good is not about offering a low price. That’s not an ad. It’s an announcement about an available transaction. "Come! Spend!" is not a message that wins hearts. Even Walmart knows that. At least in offering you lower prices, they promise you'll live better. But I digress. The faithful reader to the weekly screed has beard me bang the drum for Howard Gossage. A rebel ad man who died too young, Gossage was an iconoclast who knew how to engage and entertain. Gossage is also the man who gave us a famous quote… “People do not read advertising—they read what interests them, and sometimes that’s advertising.” One way to know you’ve created a good ad is that you enjoy reading it, watching it or listening to it. You don’t tire of being subjected to it. It always seems fresh. You'd be happy to show it to someone else. (Even if it's radio. A good radio commercial paints an enormous picture.) Gossage suggested that if advertising was to gain professional respect, it required that we “look at ourselves and our audiences differently. And then the audience will look at advertising differently: as a public service.” That doesn’t mean to try and be Subaru and go bragging about saving the planet. It means speaking to your customer as if you were speaking to someone you care about. Or, to be more blunt, we can quote Ogilvy… “The customer is not a moron. She’s your wife.” Ouch. Blunt, indeed. So... Are you writing an advertisement? Are you trying to see your customer in there? Are you feeling the customer’s pain? Are you feeling good about the relief you’re providing? Are you feeling good about the chances of your customer calling you? Yes, it can be difficult. But the customer matters. And too many ads don’t have any room for the customer. A spouse. A sibling. A friend. A lover. Pretend the customer is someone you know well. Write that person a letter about what is really so great that thing is that you’re trying to sell. It might not make a great ad. But it will feel better than anything else you’ve written. And it will inform what you really want your ad to say. And creating a better ad feels really good. LIGHTNING BRANDING ON AMAZON The Kindle edition of our new book is now available at Amazon for the bargain price of $19.95. For details about our new Lightning Branding courses, both do-it-yourself and we-do-it-with-you editions, click here. (There's even a video of us!) Cheers, Blaine Parker Your Lean, Mean Creative Director in Park City So many broken ad messages lack humanity...
Not all, mind you. Some make a sincere effort at humanity, but miss the mark a little. However, so many broken ads follow a pattern: “Jam in all these facts! Talk about them! Buy now!” There’s no recognition of the human being at the other end of the pipe, only a recognition that “I want to sell this!” “Fact! Fact! Fact! Fact! Fact! Buy now!” How am I supposed to feel about these facts? How am I supposed to feel about you, the seller? How does any of this solve my problem? And what IS my problem, anyway? Do you, Mr. Seller, even recognize that I’m here? As you know, an advertising message is like asking for a date. What if you start asking for a date by saying, “I have a good job, I make a lot of money, I’m fit and healthy, and I’m available. I would make an excellent mate. We could have lots of strong, healthy children of both genders. They will be well above average and go to the finest private learning institutions. We would live well, and retire to an upper-middle-class enclave on the west coast of Florida. Want to have dinner?” Before the end of the first sentence, the answer was "I have to stay home and wash my hair." There’s no recognition of the prospect, the prospect’s feelings, and the conversation the prospect is already having inside his or her head. A much better, self-centered way of doing it would be this: “Look at my fabulous shoes. Want to have dinner?” At least it’s an amusing non-sequitur. The date might be entertaining. Here now, a brief tale… The Fabulous Honey Parker has just written a novel. Neither of us saw this coming, but it happened. It’s a topical novel that has to get to the public yesterday. Even a friend of ours in publishing said, “This is a great idea. But it has to get out in October, and a traditional publisher can’t make that happen. You have to self-publish.” One joy of self-publishing is self-marketing. And marketing a novel is so much different than marketing anything else--yet so much the same. In the marketing, humanity matters. Nobody cares about the facts of the book. They care about the feeling of the book. The feeling they will get from it. The feeling the story will give them. This extends to the author’s story as well. What’s the feeling behind the book? How did the author feel about writing it? How does she feel about the experience? How does that feeling influence the feeling of joy, laughter, sadness, and/or pathos I’m going to get from buying that book and reading it? “Well, yeah! It’s a novel, not a home improvement product! “It’s entertainment! My rugs and window blinds are not about feeling good. They’re about getting the best deal on rugs and window blinds!” And you, my friend, have missed the boat that’s sailing into the psychology of home improvement. People who buy rugs and blinds are not buying function. They’re buying form. Form leads to a feeling. Aesthetic form makes the customer feel good about being at home. And in a time when people are locked inside more than ever, feeling good about one’s home is huge. Just like feeling good about one’s entertainment is huge. How does the customer feel now, and how will they feel after they buy? This is where the metaphorical rubber meets the road of emotions. Everyone right now is living in A Place They’ve Never Been. All stories have to understand that. Whether they’re stories about home improvement or stories about novels, the stories that sell require knowing how the customer feels. That doesn’t mean talking about the feeling. It means talking to the feeling. Identify the customer’s feeling and know how to speak to it. Master that, and you win the first date. We will be speaking more about this in coming screeds… LIGHTNING BRANDING ON AMAZON The Kindle edition of our new book is now available at Amazon for the bargain price of $19.95. For details about our new Lightning Branding courses, both do-it-yourself and we-do-it-with-you editions, click here. (There's even a video of us!) Cheers, Blaine Parker Your Lean, Mean Creative Director in Park City Cashing In By Being Consistent And Bringing The Corn
"Bring The Corn, Sam" Is there an important marketing lesson in an old, black & white movie? It's a 70-year-old film that has been called "schlocky" and "mediocre." How can this film even matter? After all, one of the movie's screenwriters called it, "A great deal of corn, more corn than in the states of Kansas and Iowa combined." Remember, this man talking about his own writing. And what is corn, anyway? Ask Oxford, and here's what you get: "Trite, banal, or mawkishly sentimental." Ick. That Sounds Not Good But if you've ever watched this film, you know: the trite, banal and mawkish sentimentality works like a charm. This film is the Humphrey Bogart/Ingrid Bergman classic, Casablanca. It's one of the most popular movies of all time. Over 70 years later, it remains one of the single most rented movies ever. This despite being (yes) corny. Even the same people who describe it using words like "schlocky" and "mediocre" also say things like "phenomenon worthy of awe" and "Homeric." (Didn't study your classics? Homer is the Greek poet who gave us epics The Iliad and The Odyssey. He's considered a genius for all time.) Damn The Corn! Full Speed Ahead! The reason Casablanca has been working for the better part of a century is simple: big themes and authenticity. Yes, the movie is full of stereotypes. But the stereotypes are positive and flattering. The movies is rife with emotional struggle. Raw human emotions are at the center of everything. And the key theme of the film is this: Sacrifice. Almost nobody in the movie is without selfishness and greed. But when push comes to shove, everyone you care about sacrifices something. As the great Italian thinker and author Umberto Eco says of Casablanca, "The myth of sacrifice runs through the whole film." Ah, myth. Myths Are The Stories We Tell About Our Better Selves And Casablanca works because it is founded on a myth of things that are good, right and true. Despite bouts of bad acting, erratic storytelling, and ongoing corn, Casablanca is a 102-minute commercial for the myth of sacrifice above personal gain. It's a story about intrigue, betrayal, love, sex, hope--and our better selves. Corn sells in Casablanca, and it can sell in your advertising. Corny jokes, corny sentiment, even corny brands will work--IF they are honest and based on thoughtful, authentic brands. Corn is dad jokes. The comedy may not be skillful or even very funny. But it's delivered with heart. It comes with a knowing wink and a nod by a guy who's a good, authentic human. We've had long-running ad campaigns based on corn. Those corny campaigns have made the advertisers into celebrities. Authentic corn has made them top-of-mind. It has helped them make wheelbarrows full of money. So much advertising at the small-business level is corny. The corn that works does so because it's built on a solid foundation of authentic brand. It works also because it's consistent. It works because it brings the love that underpins the Dad joke. Loving your work. Loving your customer. Loving the pursuit of a better reality. Those things are not dictated by fashion or style. They are predicated on the best of us. And the best of us is a quality that is timeless. LIGHTNING BRANDING ON AMAZON The Kindle edition of our new book is now available at Amazon for the bargain price of $19.95. For details about our new Lightning Branding courses, both do-it-yourself and we-do-it-with-you editions, click here. (There's even a video of us!) Cheers, Blaine Parker Your Lean, Mean Creative Director in Park City Want Your Competition To Love You? Stop Advertising.
I've been having conversations with readers of this weekly screed. It's disappointing (and no surprise) to see a recurring theme. Business owners have stopped advertising. More than one media salesperson is bemoaning an "immediacy mentality over a marketing mindset." (Credit to Debra Carpenter at Michigan's Joy 99 for that gem.) The familiar refrain: Business owners can't understand why they should advertise. Business is slow, inventory is scarce, people are staying home, things are locked down--name an excuse. History keeps showing us the power of advertising when things are bad. It's the power of thriving versus dying. Authoritative sources are always showing that benefits of advertising in a downturn. "But my budget! I have no revenue!" And without advertising, where is more revenue going to come from? We have a friend who owns a remodeling business. When the 2008 recession hit, he was leveraged to the teeth. He also knew: stop advertising, and he would never recover. So he was resourceful. He kept finding creative ways to keep the marketing tap open and flowing. His main competitor did not. Our friend's business is now huge. It's a juggernaut. His competitor never recovered. Freight train, a supertanker, or marathon runner? Pick your marketing metaphor. It's about momentum and the long haul. When your business stops advertising, your customers forget you. Advertising is about keeping your brand in motion. Keeping it rolling. Keeping it afloat. Keeping it running. Stop the momentum, and getting back to speed is difficult. "But what if I can't afford to do it?" Better question: Can you afford not to? The overused word of our time is "pivot." Everyone's pivoting like ballerinas on meth. Yay, pivoting! Despite the overuse of the word, pivoting is about survival, from the macro to the micro, from the economy to the solopreneur. Pivot. Swivel. Revolve. Spin. Swing. Whatever your metaphorical verb, find a way do it. Work on a way to keep advertising. "I can't afford it!" is reactive thinking. "How can I afford it?" is proactive wisdom. And understand how to be effective. Being effective means being evocative. Your brand is the fuel that informs the emotion of your message. If you don't understand your brand, it's time to change that. For proof of the power of advertising in a downturn, don't take my word. Google "advertising in a recession." The first hit should be a great article from Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2009/04/how-to-market-in-a-downturn-2 After that comes a parade of intel on doing the smart thing. Keep running your marathon, do it with wisdom, and you will beat the runners who quit. LIGHTNING BRANDING ON AMAZON The Kindle edition of our new book is now available at Amazon for the bargain price of $19.95. For details about our new Lightning Branding courses, both do-it-yourself and we-do-it-with-you editions, click here. (There's even a video of us!) Cheers, Blaine Parker Your Lean, Mean Creative Director in Park City Your founder creates a brand name that contains the letter "L" many times.
Why? So, to a Japanese buyer, it sounds western. (If you are unaware, the Japanese have difficulty pronouncing the letter "L.") A decade after selling your first pair of pants, your IPO raises almost $328 million. For three years in a row, your brand ends up on a majorpublication's list of fastest growing companies. You become known for using "holistic guerrilla marketing." You want your customer to feel that they are part of a larger community. But then come the controversies. One line of clothing made from seaweed provides "anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, hydrating and detoxifying benefits." But independent lab tests disprove that claim. You have to stop claiming it. Next, customers are complaining of poor quality. Products are falling apart after just a few uses. Oops. Some of your reusable bags are recalled for containing high amounts of lead Then, everyone's favorite media laugh-fest. Turns out, a very expensive pair of pants is too thin. They become transparent. You recall 17% of your entire inventory. Major cost. Bad press. The Chief Product Officer resigns. Then, your founder mocks how Japanese customers pronounce the brand name. (Remember all those instances of the letter "L"? What's he thinking?) The founder is asked why there are no clothes for plus-size women. He says it's because they're too expensive to make. Customers complain about fabric pilling. The founder blames it on women wearing it wrong. And on having body shapes inconsistent with the clothing design. He says some women's bodies are inconsistent with the brand's clothing. When the founder is forced to resign, some folks are unsurprised. Later, the founder publishes an open letter to shareholders. He says the company is losing ground to competitors. The founder launches a website specifically to criticize the company, which has lost its way. (Based on what got him fired, I'm wondering: what was the company's way in the first place?) And now, the latest media giggle... "Resist Capitalism." The brand is being ridiculed for using that phrase. That idea is one component of a "Decolonizing Gender" yoga workshop it promoted. And that is how the firestorm of scorn and mockery comes raining down upon the brand. It happened last week. The brand is a lightning rod. The media delights in whipping it. But what is the truth? The truth is that the brand did not create the event. A brand ambassador created it. But the company shared it on their social media feeds. It seems nobody in charge of social had the good sense to question the message vis à vis the brand. Hello, communication overload! In this over-fast, overcommunicated culture, many in charge of communicating are overwhelmed or underqualified. Or both. Neither you nor I will ever have an international, multi-billion-dollar brand. (Nothing personal.) Nonetheless, the small-business brands we do have are still judged by how they make people feel. Our customers pay attention. How do our brands behave? How are our customers speaking of us? The good news: at least this ridiculed brand is being talked about. And as that gender-challenged gentleman from The Old Country once said, "There's only one thing worse in the world than being talked about, and that's not being talked about." Yes, we have to be judicious about what we say and how we behave. But we still have to do things that are worth talking about. We each have to make our customer feel something. We just have to hope we are being on-brand. And not looking like idiots. Got courage? LAST CHANCE FOR FREE... It's going away soon, because it is now on amazon Kindle for $19.95. Get the last remaining free copy of Lightning Branding: How to Generate Revenue Faster With An Electrifying New Brand right here. For details about our new Lightning Branding courses, both do-it-yourself and we-do-it-with-you editions, click here. (There's even a video of us!) Cheers, Blaine Parker Your Lean, Mean Creative Director in Park City “What?! Of course not! You’re out of your brand-loving mind! Go back to beneath whatever godforsaken marketing rock you crawled out from under!” OK. I’m out of my mind. In some minds, “subversive” might conjure an image of a Molotov-cocktail throwing revolutionary who meets his swarthy, mustachioed cohorts in dark basement cafés to plot revolution against the ruling party while smoking a thick, harsh, unfiltered cigarette with a hard-to-pronounce name like “Gauloises.” And yes, that is a kind of subversive. But let’s look at the core definition of the word. “Subversion” is about taking power from an established authority or institution. That definition does not hinge on being able to meet in a smoky, dark basement or heaving a bottle of petrol stuffed with a flaming rag. The important component is taking power. And not necessarily absolute power. Some power is sufficient. And it’s arguable that branding is a form of subversion when the goal is to win customers from the competition. Taking away customers is a form of winning power. One of our first clients was a general dentist who said, “We want to run some ads for implants!” We said, “You could do that. But you’re competing against a branded national giant called Clear Choice. How about developing a brand that’s in direct competition?” The resulting brand gave the dentist a clear and evocative profile as an implant specialist. In the first year, that brand took in close to a million bucks. Could that near-million bucks have gone to Clear Choice? Of course. But our client took that chunk of power. Subversive dentistry, at your service! What about the sound of power down the drain? Back in my radio days, we helped a plumber do some backward branding. The account rep and I reverse engineered branded advertising for the plumber. It took that local plumber to #2 in the market for top-of-mind awareness. You can argue that this small-business brand was taking power from #1 plumber, an outfit called Roto-Rooter. Subversive branding is helpful for small-business survival. The small-business brand need take only a tiny fraction of the customer power that would go to the 600-pound gorilla. How many stories have you heard about communities rallying against a proposed big-box chain store? The big national brand wants to come to town and subvert power from established local business. More than one Walmart has drained the power and authority from a nearby main-street commercial district. The Home Depot brand has put more than one local hardware store out of business. “You can do it, we can help!” That’s a (now defunct) Home Depot tagline. It also has some grim meaning when couched against the act of ruining local businesses. Local bookstores were crushed by subversives called Waldenbooks, Barnes & Noble and Borders. Later on, those three subversive giants were a subversive outfit called Amazon. A big national brand can subvert an authoritative local business. Then, fans of local businesses cry, “That’s not fair!” But on a clinical level, commerce is not about fairness. It’s about exchanging goods and services. If a small business wants to exchange goods and services against a giant competitor, isn’t it necessary to take away even a modicum of power? Small businesses need and deserve brand. Be David. Take the power from Goliath and thrive. Cheers, Blaine Parker Your Lean, Mean Creative Director in Park City Our Lightning Branding clients almost always surprise us... Just this morning, I was reading the worksheets from a Lightning Branding Private Edition client. This is a smart woman. And in a way, she's a personification of the American dream: first-generation American child of immigrant parents, a law degree, big jobs with big companies, now working as an independent consultant in financial technology. On her worksheet was an exercise saying to think of three attractive brands that make you want to participate. Describe the brand's commitment to sharing their joy. How does it draw you in and make you want to be part of the club? We never saw this answer coming... "Burning Man." Yes, this woman's first favorite attractive brand is a desert event renowned as an experiment in community and art. It is recognized for its "Radical Inclusion." In simple terms, she described profound emotions. It's clear that being at Burning Man was a revelation. It's also not the first time we've heard this kind of thing. A few years ago, The Fabulous Honey Parker and I were at the dinner table with a real estate developer. He's originally from the Midwest. He's a hockey goalie, a jet pilot, a game hunter, and very much a red-state kinda guy. He was also speaking in glowing terms about his experience at Burning Man. We've known this man for years. But that night at dinner, we saw a new side of him. Someone had pulled back the curtain and offered a glimpse of the Promised Land. He'd been hit by a lightning bolt. It left him joyful, humbled and awed. This hockey-playing sophisticate who votes red now feels the fire. From the outside, Burning Man looks like a hippy festival of high-weirdness fueled by drugs and debauchery. In other words, it's exactly where you'd go to find a guy like Republican activist Grover Norquist, right? Yes, Mr. Norquist went to Burning Man in 2014. Writing about the experience, he describes a sense of community and camaraderie befitting a "church social." He observed that the desert's demands for self reliance make everyone tough. He also noted, "There are few fools, and no malingerers. People give of themselves." Giving of themselves? This is an important lesson for any business and its brand. Through Lightning Branding, we've worked with people who are smart, thoughtful, giving and funny. They are small-business entrepreneurs who are driven to be useful. In the process, they want to provide an experience that makes their client feel good. You might even say that deep inside, they feel the fire. Burning men. Burning women. Burning brands. Built on purpose, on intent, on usefulness. Welcome to the fire within... Still FREE for now... There's a free copy of Lightning Branding: How to Generate Revenue Faster With An Electrifying New Brand right here. For details about our new Lightning Branding courses, both do-it-yourself and we-do-it-with-you editions, click here. (There's even a video of us!) Cheers, Blaine Parker Your Lean, Mean Creative Director in Park City Let's rename item-and-price advertising for what it is, shall we? I admit it. I'm still losing sleep over item and price advertising. We need to rename it. Let's call it "piece-and-price." A piece of merchandise is an item, right? And "piece and price" lets us use the acronym PAP. Yay! Acronyms! PAP advertising! And "PAP" is fitting, eh? As you may know, the word "pap" has two definitions. 1) "Bland soft or semiliquid food such as that suitable for babies or invalids." 2) "Reading matter that is worthless or lacking in substance." Synonyms for "pap" include "nonsense," "drivel," "rubbish," "trash," and "noise." The latter is my favorite. "Noise" is a direct reference to communication science. Noise stands between the sender of a message and the receiver. In our case, noise is a barrier between advertiser and customer. And PAP advertising is just noise. Look at so many car dealers and appliance stores. "Picture! Price! Buy now!" Zero effort to engender a good feeling about their business. Back when I was in radio, my most successful car dealer advertiser sold out their inventory every month. They did it by advertising one thing: Brand. Every message compelled you to feel good about their dealership. They made you want to buy a car because it made them sound like people you want to be friends with. Contrast that with the unbranded competition: "Yeah, we sell that, too. Buy it now!" But...being king is different. Can you be the king of the PAP you advertise? Remember when big-screen TVs were unusual and expensive? Every day, lots of PAP advertisers were showing you big TVs and big prices in their race to the bottom. But not The King. In California, a famous retailer called himself "The King of Big Screen TVs." He had PAP advertising. Big TVs! Low prices! However... The King also showed you his face. He told you his name. He promised same-day delivery and 100% happiness. He said the customer is always right. He also promised, in every ad, "I AM the king of big screens!" He had a brand and he advertised it. One can argue: it is an imperfect brand. But it IS a brand. It is not just PAP. And for 30 years, he built a reputation as the leader in big-screen TV sales. At his peak, he was selling $30 million in big TVs-out of a single retail store. Yes, TVs. One store. 30 million bucks a year. When he died in 2015, he was famous. Big newspapers and magazines wrote stories about him. He remains a celebrity even today. His brand outlasted his business. People loved him. Nobody loves PAP. Unbranded PAP is racing to the bottom of the barrel. Human beings are irrational, emotional creatures. They make decisions using emotion. This is not my opinion. This is Nobel-prize winning science. Winning people over requires appealing to their emotions over the long term. Your business must feel right. Making it so requires brand. What if you are afraid of paying too much for a big TV? Who would you trust? a) The generic appliance retailer, no branded personality, displaying pictures and prices (PAP!) of washing machines, refrigerators, ranges and, oh, big TVs? Or... b) The guy who spends 30 years displaying pictures of big TVs at low prices while saying "I'm the king of big TV and you're the boss!" It's not high art. It doesn't need to be. It needs to be authentic, resonant and consistent. It needs to feel good. It needs to be something besides PAP. Know someone who needs to electrify their branding for business as unusual? There's still a free copy of Lightning Branding: How to Generate Revenue Faster With An Electrifying New Brand is still available by clicking here. For details about our new Lightning Branding courses, both do-it-yourself and we-do-it-with-you editions, click here. (There's even a video of us!) Cheers, Blaine Parker Your Lean, Mean Creative Director in Park City |
AuthorBlaine Parker is prone to ranting about any and all things related to brand. In many ways, he is a professional curmudgeon. While there is no known vaccine for this, the condition is also not contagious. Unless you choose it to be so. Archives
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