Marketing Pop Culture

Minneapolis, Shopper Marketing and Gilly Hicks

You may have noticed that I typically don't blog about my day job.  However, today was the first day of the PMA's Shopper Marketing Summit.  I've never been to Minneapolis before, so it was a special treat to have a tour of the Mall of America.  According to the presentation from EVP Maureen Basch, there's over 4 million square feet of retail space and they're about to add another 5 million with a new development.  Also, there's a very cool amusement park that puts my local Chuck E. Cheese to shame.  Nickelodeon just took over from the estate of Minneapolis native and Peanuts creator Charles Schultz.  Take a look:

A store that caught my eye was Gilly Hicks (here and here), a concept that is backed by Abercrombie & Fitch.  Basically, they sell women's underwear, and expect to compete with Victoria's Secret for 20-something women.  Whereas Victoria's Secret is bright, GH feels like a club filled with lots of nooks and crannies, you know, places where you might hook up. 

Also, this event gave me a chance to try some live twittering via Twitterberry, a twitter application for Blackberry.  Apparently, Twitter was having some problems, but overall it works pretty well.  You can see all of my tweets from the day here.  Feel free to subscribe, if you like.

A Failure of "Microtrends"?

Here's a chink the armor of Burson-Marstellar CEO Mark Penn's "Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow's Big Changes."  Penn contends--and I believe him--that you only need 1% of an audience to get behind a product for it to be a winner.  I think that this is a particularly good way to approach things if you've identified a niche.  It certainly makes sense when it comes to books, movies, music, etc.

But a presidential race is, by definition, an exercise in mass marketing: He or she who ends up with the most votes wins.  It's not about aggregating a bunch of niches into one big mass.  And it's certainly not the thing to do once you realize (if you ever do) that you're in the midst of a cultural shift.  David Kiley of Business Week sums up Penn's strategic failure (thusfar) as strategist of the Clinton campaign:

It appears that while Penn was pushing this year’s election as a collection of mind-numbing microtrends—commuter couples, extreme commuters, pro-Semites, sun haters, Old New Dads, Christian Zionists—he missed the idea that national elections tend to turn on macro effects. One thing that will never go out of style—voters want to be inspired. To do that, you have to be tapped into the common denominator of a majority of voters. That’s where Penn’s strategy went off the rails. He never saw it, while his nose was buried in his microtrend focus [g]roups and surveys.

Read the full Business Week post here.

On competitors

Every so often, I get an e-mail from someone at an agency that targets high school and college students.  The subject line is "Clear Alternative to [INSERT COMPETITOR's NAME] - College & High School Marketing".

I understand that they're trying to build visibility and equity while positioning themselves in opposition to the agency that, in their minds, occuppies the #1 slot.  Problem is, just because I'm on their e-mail list (not sure how I got there in the first place!) doesn't mean that their company means anything to me.  More importantly, even if I don't know this #2 company, they've made me curious about the #1.  Why?  Because they mention them!

I'm now disinclined to give the #2 company a shot because they seem to suck at marketing themselves.  Further, before I can evaluate the validity of the subject line--Are they, in fact, a clear alternative?--I have to check out the #1.  So, basically, this company is doing wonderful marketing for their competitor.

So: Don't mention your competitors.  And certainly don't spell out for people that your competitor is the #1.  Instead, sell people on the benefits of working with you.  Talk about all of your happy clients.  Offer case studies that have results.  Please be smarter than this.

And African American ad shops wonder why they get no respect

The production is great.  The choir is rousing.  It's made it into the media rotation during "Ugly Betty".  So what's wrong with this spot?

It's lazy.

Cynical.

Perhaps the brief read something like this: "Create awareness among an African-American audience of Mazda's Motor Trend award."  So some lazy CD turned to the client and said:

"I know.  Let's go with the idea of gospel.  It's celebratory.  And, after, all this award is a big deal.  It should be celebrated."

So we end up with brothas and sistas catching the holy spirit over a car.  A car?  I can't wait for the version where some Jews launch into "Hava Nagila".

At a time when there's heated discussions about the need for more diversity as well as ways to bring more  multicultural shops to the strategic table, the need for great ideas can't be overlooked.  There's absolutely no big idea here.  Is this the fault of the agency?  Not entirely.  Did they do the best they could with what they were given?  Maybe.

But multicultural shops can't demand to be treated with respect and parity, and then turn around and do completely unimaginative work.  Clients, on the other hand, have to stop looking at ethnic agencies in such narrow terms, limiting their work to what they think will get past the cultural filters of brown audiences.

Nike and the "continually curious" organization

At it's core, the Nike brand has been about authenticity, particularly to the athletic enthusiast.  By staying tuned to what the core enthusiasts are into--music, slang, dress codes, athletes they admire, etc.--and fully understanding what it means to be immersed in that lifestyle, the brand has been able to grow its market share by giving us regular folks the impression that a bit of that magic dust will rub off on us.  Just buy some Nike apparel and you'll at least feel like a world-class athlete.

It was thanks to a post by Ed Cotton that I learned about Wednesday's profile of Nike CEO Mark Parker in the Wall Street Journal.  Ed pulled the following quote:

"I have a personal interest in popular culture and the influence of culture on the consumer landscape," says Mr. Parker, rattling off the worlds he turns to for inspiration: interior design, cuisine, art and music among them.

Yes, I'd say that it is highly unusual for a CEO to be interested/invested in pop culture.  However, this is  crucial to professional success at Nike.  In their book, Chasing Cool: Standing Out In Today's Cluttered Marketplace, Noah Kerner and Gene Pressman quote former Nike CMO Scott Bedbury on this very point:

"If you were the head of Nike Basketball, you damn well better know what's going on in the minds of young basketball players--the music they listen to, their vernacular, how they define success, what they fear, what they dream.  The bulk of it is just about getting out there and wandering around.  And anybody in the marketing group at Nike was penalized, if not put into early retirement, if they didn't get out there, if they weren't continually curious."

So here's a corporate culture that breeds and rewards continous curiousity.  So its outreach to  influential influencers is not, as I see it, simply coolhunting, as the Journal article tries to suggest.  Rather, these choices made with far more insight into pop culture than most brands will ever have.  Nike is reaching out to people who will matter to its core.  The ripple effects that reach the mainstream are enough to keep it elevated above just another apparel brand.  At the end of the day, what the company has done is that it has made its employees--and here's my acknowledgement of Grant McCracken's work on my own thinking--"listening posts" that help it interpret changes in the cultural landscape.

Now, speaking of both Grant and Nike, you'll want to check out this post.  He talks about his experience with the Nike+ running shoes that lets upload your jogging mileage to the Web.  Suddenly, you're no longer involved in a solitary activity.  The cool insight here is how the company leveraged technology to tap into its consumers' competitive spirit.

Too often companies feel like they have all the answers within their walls.  But that only makes for muddling along in the middle of the market.  Just in case you haven't figured it out, there's no money in the middle anymore.

Green Strategy Questions--Part 2

Based on the previous post, here's another one I thought of, which, actually, should've been the one of the first questions asked:

• What do your consumers and customers want?  Many companies talk about being consumer-centric.  If that's the case, then are your consumers calling for more green?  Also, it's useful to consider the impact of your change to green on your customers' businesses.  If you're building brands at retail, for example, do you gain anything in terms of relevance to your customers' shoppers by going green?

Your thoughts?

Green Strategy Questions

As I was writing the previous post, I found that I'd developed a whole set a questions that I think marketers should be asking.  Funny, but despite the suspicions on the part of American consumers, there are a lot of companies that believe they need to be in a "green" zone.  So, here are some key questions that come to mind for marketers:

• Is green the right strategy for your company?  By that, I mean is it of primary or secondary importance to your company’s future?  Off the top of my head, CPG, energy and pharmaceutical/healthcare companies are should be pondering this question, if they’re not already doing so.  It’s of lesser importance to, say, telecom, internet and other media brands.

• What’s your company’s position on green?  This will come out of your answer to the first question.

• If your company has a position on green, is it defensible?  What will it take to make it so?  Basically, this is about the good ol’ RTB’s (reasons to believe)

• Is senior management behind this push?  As is the case with other organization-wide initiatives such as driving an integrated marketing mindset throughout the company, senior management needs to champion this or it will not happen.

• Is this even an issue that should reside within marketing?  I think not.  Marketing should be involved, but since there are organization-wide implications, the charge might have to be led by another group or function within the company.  Especially since marketers are under an incredible amount of pressure to show accountability and results, the company might be better served by keeping their focus on customer acquisition and retention.  Kraft Foods, for example, has a SVP of health, wellness and sustainability.  Your company might need to staff a specific function in this area.

• What’s my timeline?  A green transformation of your company won’t happen overnight.  It’s important to manage expectations inside and outside your company.

• What’s the best product or service in my portfolio to start with?  Related to the previous question.  How can you start small and have your green position grow—dare I say it?—organically?  Is there a product on which you can test and learn?  Is it cheaper/better to develop a brand new product?  Should your company acquire one?

Sorry that there's not a lot in the way of answers here.  What are some other questions that should be asked?  What are some other angles at which a company can come at this issue?  I'd love to hear your thoughts and learn from your experiences.

Most Americans: Green is "Just a Marketing Tactic"

Nature Landscape: Land Formation, originally uploaded by photo.imagina.

Obviously, there’s a lot of talk about “green”.  More than ever, products and services are touting their eco-consciousness, foods are “organic” or “natural” and companies are staking claims that they support “sustainability”.

But according to an Ipsos Reid study reported today by the Center for Media Research, a whopping 70% of Americans believe “that when companies call a product ‘green’ (meaning better for the environment), it is usually just a ‘marketing tactic’”.

More interesting data points from the US panel:

• Men are more likely than women to believe such labeling is just a marketing tactic (75% vs. 65%, respectively).

• Southerners are most wary of the “green” label.  72% of southerners believe it’s a marketing tactic while 58% of those in the Northeast are least likely to believe this.

• Nearly half of the men surveyed (49%) are less willing than women (39%) to pay more upfront for green products for their homes

This should be a real wake-up call for marketers who are or are planning to jump on the green wave.  Clearly this will require more than changing packaging or coming up with nifty new positioning statements.  With 70% of Americans in what I’d call the “non-believer” category, it’s going to take a complete re-orientation of your organizations.  By this, I mean that green will have to be something that the entire company lives.  Imagine a P&G, Wal-Mart, Target or Coke demanding higher “green” standards from their supply chains, from the raw materials to the processing to the packaging.  Imagine further that they demanded that their distributors commit to a timetable for changing their fleets over to ethanol-based engines in order to reduce the amount of fossil fuels used to transport their products to retailers.

Perhaps it will take an effort on that order to overcome what seems to be a deep suspicion on the part of consumers.  Let’s see which companies take this information and really step up their green game.

More on this Center for Media Research report here.

 

Targeting Influencers? Why?

Seth Godin points us to a recently released Jupiter report that suggests that

marketers are failing at viral campaigns because it only works 15% of the time, and that the most popular technique was "targeting influentials."

I've always been skeptical of courting influencers and so-called "tastemakers" because they're so fickle.  Particularly when it comes to media and entertainment, they themselves don't buy anything.  In the case of celebrities, they expect to be given things for free because of their celebrity.  I don't know, but just because I see a Lindsay Lohan or George Clooney with a certain product, I'm not sure I'm moved to want it.

As Seth points out, it's important to create something that's worthy of being discussed.  That's more likely the reason for the 85% failure rate of viral campaigns.  But, hey, it's hard to create something truly unique when you're being rewarded and incented on quarterly P&L management.

Upcoming PSFK London Conference

Piers Fawkes is prepping for the London edition of the PSFK Conference, which he bills as "a morning of trends and ideas, an afternoon of new marketing inspiration."  I attended the New York event, and found it useful in that I got to see how agencies--smaller ones, interestingly--were innovating in the use of digital and social media, and coming up with out-of-the-box solutions to their clients' marketing challenges.

If you're in London on June 1, consider checking it out.  Note that there's tiered pricing based on when you register, so it's a good idea to do so sooner, rather than later.

Info on speakers is here.