Marketing Matters

Archive for January, 2010

“Oh yes you do so have competitors. Here I’ll help you count them as they pass you by.”

I have an alarming number of conversations that could go that way if I didn’t bite my tongue. No matter how new or established the company, everyone thinks they’re alone in their offering.

The only way to get someone, usually a salesperson and especially a start-up CEO, to name competitors is to ask the question, “Who do your potential clients think are your competitors? Who else do they talk to when they talk to you?”

I blame the book Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and  Renee Mauborgne. It’s a good book, but like most rational ideas, in its pure form, it sounds valid and realizable. Its reality, though, can be a harrowing tale of naïveté or worse. Like Communism.

The thing about a Blue Ocean Strategy that’s good is that you do need to find your company’s unique offering and make sure everyone knows it. For me, for instance, I’m the only marketing advisor who is 6’ 1”, has hazel eyes, big glasses and who has worked with major brands and heads of state around the world to help them hone their marketing who is sitting in the lobby of the ACE Hotel drinking way too much coffee. For you, your unique value is probably something different (unless you also have a French press full of more coffee than you typically drink in a week).

Finding your unique value is what your marketing needs to be about, but it should never lead you to say you don’t have any competitors. You do. And because they know what makes them distinct and can articulate it, they’re racing past you full steam ahead while you try to get your bearings.

Be distinct as a brand but be honest about your competitive field. If you’re not, your audience won’t notice when you capsize and you’ll discover just how wide and lonely your ocean is.

I was about to post the blog I had scheduled for today when my crappy morning was turned around by a random act of kindness at my local Starbucks here in Montclair. It may have also been a brand statement, and I’ll explain why. Here’s what happened:

It’s been a crappy morning, and when the running around to preschool, frustrating errands and what have you was done, I found myself getting a cup of coffee at the Starbucks up the street. The very cheery woman (but not cloyingly so) handed me my coffee and I handed her my Starbucks card. Or tried to. She just ignored it and said “Thank you!” Confused (remember, I was pre-coffee) I tried to hand it to her again and she just said “Thank you!” When I finally caught on, I thanked her in an equally cheery way and let the line move on.

The randomness, as well as the genuine cheeriness of the woman behind the counter are what made it so uplifting. It may only be a $2 cup of coffee, but it was a gesture that made me smile and that’s worth more than two bucks to me. It’s also worth more than that to the company.

The reason I think this might be a brand statement and not just an employee being nice (which, I’ll grant you, my Tweet-buddy @tedcoine would tell you is the same thing) is that Starbucks has been trying to regain its brand identity by going back to being the cool local place it was when it began. I remember going into a Starbucks for the first time and it looked, smelled and sounded so different. Now, they’ve become so homogeneous that you might as well be going to McDonald’s. That’s fine if brand homogeneity is Job 1, but it’s not fine if you want to stay special in your customers’ eyes.

Like politics, all Starbucks are local. I don’t think there’s anyone travelling around to all the different locations taking notes and blogging about it (unless you work at the company, perhaps). You go to the one up the street, around the corner or down the road. So local attachment is important to cultivate. Whether that’s always been an articulated brand value I don’t know, but I’m guessing it is now. After all, all the fresh paint and comfortable chairs in the world won’t change how your customers feel about you. But people walking out with a smiles on their faces or saying “hey, you know what?” will increase your local loyalty and your brand value dramatically – and for only 2 bucks.

A conversation just wound up with a potential client in which the main question was “how do we cut through the chatter?”

I told them what I always tell clients, “be honest, avoid hyperbole and let’s make it sound like something you, personally, would actually say to a customer.” They protested that my approach would never work, that there’s so much noise out there, the only way to be heard was to be the noisiest kid on the block. The conversation isn’t a new one, but it’s still disheartening, both as a marketer and a consumer.

Their approach reminds me of last night’s weather report. “A snow storm is going to hit New Jersey! Get ready for a terrible commute or just work from home.’ The projection was for an inch of snow. I can understand an inch of snow being a shocking snowstorm if you live in, say, Tahiti. I don’t. I live in New Jersey, a state where between November and March it’s very likely to snow. An inch is never a storm here. It’s called weather and we have some.

It’s no news that television, particularly broadcast news, treats its audience like idiots, but you see in the overall decline in ratings what that approach is doing for them. If your company wants to build a relationships with your customers want, addressing them with hyperbole or an approach that appeals to the lowest common denominator won’t work. Respect your clients with your messaging. Treat them like the valuable (and valued) part of your business that they are and they’ll respect you back. And buy from you again.