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Act III
Move Fast and Break Things
That quote I used for the chapter title was the daily mantra for Mark Zuckerberg and the Facebook clan as they grew their company from a modest networking website for college kids into the largest social media juggernaut in the world.
Breaking things may be risky, but in the new space, playing safe pretty much guarantees you will fail.
Down is up, and up is down. All of the developments weāve discussed thus far have redefined not only what success is, but how you get there today. People hanging on to the past will get left behind, but people who are willing to move fast and break things will succeed at levels we have yet to see.
Hereās a small, but mind-bending cross section of how some of these challenges actually offer great opportunities.
The New Reality of Marketing
We now live in the age of overload. The human brain has never had to process as much information as it is required to today. The average person is besieged with a torrent of distracting stimuli 24/7. As a result, their attention span is shorter and their defenses stronger. Entrepreneurs need to rethink the ways in which they reach their audiencesāand so far, theyāre doing a horrible job.
Conventional wisdom says that direct mail is dead. Yet when I promote my prosperity seminars, I get a very good response from mail campaigns. Why? Because since all the other seminar providers believe the medium is dead, they arenāt using it. Theyāre happily patting themselves on the back, thinking how much money theyāre saving by eliminating printing and postage from their budget.
Itās yet another example of how when everyone is zigging, you want to be zagging.
But you still have to be smart. Take the other side of the equation: I bought my condo in Miami Beach from a doctor. That was over six years ago, and every week I get at least one and sometimes several pieces of bulk mail addressed to him promoting some medical conference, equipment, or drug.
You would think periodically running your mailing list through the change-of-address check with the postal service would be a basic rule of Marketing 101. (On average, 2 percent of the people on any list will die or move each month.) But there are at least 50 marketers in the medical field who havenāt done this even once in six years. Statistically, every single person on their list has moved or died by nowāand one in five has moved or died twice!
These marketers are probably lamenting their declining response rates and take them as proof that direct mail no longer works. Direct mail still works greatājust not in the same way it did 20 years ago.
These company executives are probably having meetings with advertising agencies who tell them they can save all that money by building an email database. But thereās a problem with that: Email is actually another medium that is facing declining resultsāone that will either die or have to be radically reengineered.
A growing number of people are moving from email to texting, a trend thatās likely to continue. Not to mention the exponential growth of social media and microblogging. My nieces and nephews havenāt sent me an email in years, but I hear from them all the time via Facebook messages. Five- and six-year-olds now use iPads to call each other, using apps like FaceTime. They would think email was old fashionedāif they had ever heard of it.
The old-school interruption marketers are doing crazier and bolder things to try and break through the clutter. Much of this is just plain silly, and gets attention, but in the wrong way, and from the wrong people.
These same people have jumped into social media because they see it as simply another platform to broadcast their message at people. They donāt understand the nuances of the various sites and completely miss out on the listening and engagement aspects those sites offer. (For help on understanding this better, check out the book UnMarketing by Scott Stratten.)
Unfortunately, you canāt swing a dead cat today without hitting at least five people who claim to be āsocial media experts.ā They believe that following 2,000 random people a day on Twitter to see who follows back or knowing how to set up a Facebook fan page makes them a guru in this field. Yet most of them offer dreadful advice that perpetuates the most common mistakes people are making. And while giving someone a coupon or premium to ālikeā your Facebook page isnāt a bad thing, you need to establish some plan for what youāre going to do after that.
Social media changes everything in the equation. However, itās not just another channel you can use to shout your message at people.
Social media has dramatically changed the way customers find you, vet you, and buy from you, as well as the way you find, vet, and buy. It eliminates the need for many middlemen (and therefore, the need for many jobs); it makes controlling a brand or image dramatically more problematic; and it can drive prices down. On the flip side, social media has a lot of wonderful things going for it. It lets you connect directly with your tribe, monitor your brand in real time, and immediately alerts you to any problems in the marketplace. But where it really changes the game is in branding.
The Real Truth on Branding
Card-carrying contrarian Joe Calloway has a brilliant take on branding. Instead of trying to lead in your category, he advocates creating a new category and being the only one in it. His book, Becoming a Category of One, is a thought-provoking look at competitive positioning well worth your time.
Navigating the minefield of branding and positioning has never been an easy path. Now things are getting more complex. You never could really control your brand in the past, but you could at least try. Social media has made that virtually impossible. The difference now is you really know what your brand actually represents in the marketplace and when you need to fix something. (Required reading on the subject: Building Brand Value by Bruce Turkel.)
Your brand is not your logo or corporate colors, and it really isnāt even about your product or service. Your brand is a reflection of your product or service. Itās how the market perceives you. And that is created by the customerās experience with your product or service. The Internet allows people to share those experiences more readily, and that has impacted brands in a big way.
And social media has made branding really interesting.
On the surface, your brand is how the market perceives you. On a deeper level, itās how the market perceives what you can do for them. But at the ultimate, ultimate levelāand now weāre in the rarified air of brands like Apple, Cirque du Soleil, Starbucks, and Nikeāyour brand is how you make the consumer feel about him- or herself.
That 350-pound guy you see taking the escalator? He would get winded in a chess match. But in his mind, heās an elite athlete, because heās wearing a sweatshirt that says, āJust Do It!ā
Iām a bald, middle-aged, white guy, but I use a Mac. So when I walk in that Apple store, with all those skater kids, people with their dogs, and the rad guys in the Genius Bar, I feel cool!
The same is true for the people you see in line for their half-decaf, double-mocha-froth, carmelata-Frappuccinos at Starbucks; the ones browsing around in the Apple superstores; and those mesmerized by a performance of Cirque du Soleil. They are passionate advocates of the product they are buyingāor more accurately, experiencing. They believe in what they buy and want to share their experience with everyone they know. They move from customers to a marketing team more powerful than any amount of money can ever buy. This is the epitome of what Seth Godin describes in his brilliant book Tribes.
When your brand inspires a tribe, it can make you rich. And nothing inspires a tribe more than making people feel a certain way about themselves. Nike makes everyone feel like an elite jock; Starbucks admits you into the clubhouse; Apple lets you be one of the cool kids; and Cirque takes you to an enchanted place.
Chrysler did this brilliantly with their Viper brand. (In fact, they did it so successfully that they were seriously trying to sell it as a stand-alone company when they faced bankruptcy.) They created and currently manage a worldwide Viper Club with local chapters, host a website and e-zine, post videos, and print a glossy magazine. The āMembers Onlyā section of the site includes blogs and boards where the tribe connects and builds deeper fervor in the brand. Every year or two, Chrysler hosts āViper Owners Invitationals,ā which are basically conventions for us American muscle-loving, testosterone-crazed, speed demons.
Stop by one of these events and watch all the key chains, jackets, replica models, and other gee-gaws the attendees buy. Go into the Cirque store after a performance and see how fast people are snapping up $125 t-shirts. As a member of both these tribes, I can attest to the after effect.
I have my Viper caps, racing jackets, polo shirts, custom floor mats, gearshift knobs, miniature models, posters, clocks, and books. I can even drink my Dr. Pepper (another tribe I belong to) from my Viper coffee mugs or engraved Viper glasses, set on my engraved Viper logo coasters. (No, I am not kidding.) Additionally, I could stock a small boutique with all the Cirque clothes Iāve got, and I have the program, CD, and DVD for every show Iāve ever seen.
We all buy these things because we want to take a little piece of the show home with us and relive how it made us feel. True branding was always about this. Now technology and social media simply make it easier (or harder, if you donāt get it) and make it all happen faster.
And since weāre talking tribes, branding, and using tech to facilitate the processāand since Iām writing this book down in Key West, FloridaāI would be remiss if we didnāt do a case study on one of the most brilliant proponents of all this: singer Jimmy Buffett.
Iām a card-carrying member of the Parrot Head tribe (which for you heathens who donāt know, are Jimmy Buffett fans). So for dinner last night, I walked over to Duval Street and had a āCheeseburger in Paradiseā at Jimmyās Margaritaville Cafe.
Buffett has done such a magnificent job leading his tribe and harnessing the power of technology, he should command a course in every business school. He isnāt trying to save the world; however, he has managed to lead a movement that can make it a happier place for us all. His tribe is about fun, music, and giving back.
Before anyone else made CD-ROMs, Jimmy put them on the flip side of his CDs for computer-literate Parrot Heads.
Although heās had a lot of chart hits, you almost never hear a new Buffett song on the radio. Because his music defies categorizationāitās country, itās reggae, itās jazz, itās popāstation music directors arenāt sure what to do with it. Like a lot of people in the corporate world, they simply do what everyone else does, so they play the same old hits and donāt take a chance on the new stuff, despite the millions of fans who would love to hear Jimmyās voice coming through the radio.
So Jimmy skipped the traditional radio and record company distribution channel and took his movement directly to the people. He set up his own studio and his own label. Year after year he tours the globe, along with his Coral Reefer Band, selling out venue after venue, without any of the normal promotion. He writes books that have become best sellers and releases album after album, DVD after DVD, which fans keep snapping up.
Jimmy also embraced the Internet way before the rest of the music industry. He created his Internet radio station, Radio Margaritaville, in 1998. In 2005, it became the first Internet station to transition to mainstream radio when it became a channel on Sirius Satellite Radio. (Itās also available on iTunes.) The station plays a casual mix of beach music, reggae, and, of course, a steady diet of Jimmyās hits.
Long before the rest of the music business got it, Jimmy was streaming all of his concerts over Radio Margaritaville for free. (Yet, a Parrot Head would never think to knock off a Buffett album.) And instead of hurting concert attendance, these free Internet offerings drive even more traffic to the live shows. Each event is packed with the tribal faithful, sporting Parrot Head hats, fins, grass skirts, and other trinkets connected with their favorite Buffett songs.
Before each concert Jimmy does a live tailgate party on Radio Margaritaville, talking about the venue, set list, any guest stars, and just generally being a raconteur. It may be the best demonstration of how to use social media and technology to engage with a tribe that youāll ever see.
Jimmy gets it. Itās not about selling records or tickets to concerts; itās about creating an experience. But hereās the key: that experience really isnāt about him. Itās about how he makes his fans feel (rebellious, a little naughty, and young again). And that is the ultimate branding.
Of course, just when you think youāve got the music business figured out, Mark Cuban is trying to change it again. AXS TV (Cubanās venture with Ryan Seacrest Media, CAA, and concert promoter AEG) is in the market with a business model combining love concerts, pay-per-view broadcasts, and DVD/Blu-ray releases. They partner with artists to do live events, which AXS TV broadcasts as they happen, and give the footage to the artist for physical products. I recently received a similar proposal from a media company for my seminars. Youāll see a lot more partnerships like this in music, other entertainment, and education.
Spreading Memes through the Internet
A brand is really a meme-plexāa collection of related memes, aka mind viruses. And nothing spreads memes faster than the Internet. When Nike creates a YouTube sensation like āWrite the Futureā or when, in the near past, millions of people tuned in to see Steve Jobs launch a new productāwhenever someone tweets, posts a review on a website, updates their Facebook status, or adds a pin about their new iPad, memes are flying and branding is taking place.
Older, established companies lament the fact they canāt control their brand. Smart entrepreneurs will realize that is a good thing. Because while you canāt control your brand, you can actually monitor it in real time, exactly as itās playing out in the market. You can become aware of problems the...
