Selling Bricks

I tweeted earlier today about the NYTimes article covering The OgilvyOne Brick Sale.

I’m torn, really torn. I like the fact that they are encouraging the noble art of selling, but they are going about it in a very poor way I think.

They use the analog of a door to door salesman. A bad start; to me that conveys high pressure tactics unrelated to the need of the ‘buyer’.

And is a YouTube video ‘selling’ especially by a person? How does it develop the contributor’s sales skills? Advertising, perhaps.

“Salesmanship has been lost in the pursuit of art or the dazzle of technology,” said Brian Fetherstonhaugh, chairman and chief executive at OgilvyOne in New York. “It needs to be rekindled in this postrecession environment, as consumers are making more informed and deliberate choices.” (As an aside, can you pronounce the chairman’s name – without using the web?)

Now that I agree with! Helping consumers make informed and deliberate choices is EXACTLY what we as marketers and sales pros should be doing. Now how are you going to do that? Are you really going to develop and hone those skills in the individuals taking part? With a video, really? Explain how please! Or are you simply employing a cheap gimmick to promote your company? It feels more like the latter to me.

“Those involved in developing the contest considered something more exciting as the subject, said Mish Fletcher, worldwide marketing director at OgilvyOne, but “the iPad does not need ‘the world’s greatest salesperson.’ ”

This quote simply reinforces The ‘they don’t get it’ feeling I have. Apple are the master storytellers and they DO do it with video more than most other organizations (and yes, I am a fan boy, I’ll be picking my iPad up at 9AM tomorrow). Back to my point though; none of knew what to do with an iPad until Apple told the story. We don’t know the full story yet; we’ll learn a lot by using the tool In the future. But Apple told a story compelling enough that we rushed out and said ‘that’s good enough for me’. The (rumored) sales Figure was over $75million in the weekend it was available to order.   

So let’s hope that OgilvyOne do a bit more to develop sales skills in the wider world than a flashy piece of PR. How about an ongoing effort to help people grow their skill? That would be a real boon. But only once you ‘get it’ that sales is about storytelling and helping people make choices. Not about kicking down the door.

So what’s the lesson for YOU? I’m back on my authenticity kick. Is the offer you are making to your customers authentic? More importantly, do THEY find it authentic? How do you know, have you asked them?

Golden Rule – again

I’ve talked a lot about the Golden Rule – ‘treat others as you wish to be treated’ (what my mum used to quote, from the Water Babies I seem to recall “Mrs. Do As You Would Be Done By’) – because it seems to me to be the fundamental ethical plank for all businesses. Or it should be.

The one below made me laugh out loud. I visited a local web lately looking for a massage therapist and noticed that the practitioner is applying for a patent to protect their method. Wellness is a business where ethics are pretty important one would think. And a competitive edge could be important.

But perhaps relying on intellectual property protection – through a patent – is not the best thing to do whilst ripping off someone else’s image for your web site.

Mrs Do As You Would Be Done By should be paying a call! Does your web site send dissonant messages to your visitors? Are you sure? Have you tested with real users?

Where is YOUR advertsing dollar going?

I collected mail from a PO box today and was once again struck how many people did what I did. I struggled to get the mail out of the small box; not because there was a lot of mail in there, simply because of all the unsolicited brochures, mailers, junk flyers etc. They come in a huge bundle and a royal pain in the nether regions.

There are big tables and very large trash bins, as far as I ca see only to serve to sort the wheat from the chaff and to dump the chaff. The bins are invariably full.

Someone is paying big bucks to create, print, and mail these items. And all that happens is they get dumped without a second glance. Your ONLY chance of making an impression (positive or not?) is when the recipient sorts through to ensure that there is no real mail in the middle of this stuff.

Is that how you invest your marketing spend? Do YOU pay for creative, print, mail just to see your investment thrown away?

I hope not, but its worth checking!

Decide who (or what) you are….

Decide, then tell people. Sounds simple, huh?

So why do so many organizations insist on saying who they USED to be? The most egregious example I have seen in a long time is Accretive Solutions.

An aside, that seems like a horribly negative name, perhaps that’s why the keep telling us (on NPR within the last hour) that they used to be Horn, Murdoch, Cole.

Not the biggest of issues you might think. I’d agree, except that they changed their name in mid-2007.

Here we are more than TWO years later, and they are still telling the audience who they USED to be.

Not what they stand for, why I should get to know them, but who they haven’t been for over TWO years. They need a new marketing lead! And their CEO should be firing people. This stuff is not that hard,

You do work hard to define the business you are in, the way you relate to your customers, what your products and services are; and then you tell them the story, over and over again. You do NOT harp back to who, or what, you used to be.

Nobody cares. It’s not that legacy should be forgotten, but there are few, very few, organizations for whom it should, or can, be the marketing route to the future.

I spoke about one of the best name changes I had seen here. As I said then, maybe they were just Lucky….

Accretive Press

Truth in Advertising???

Has to be the most truthful adverting I have seen for a while…..

Now you start to understand my sense of humor …..

Renault in Los Angeles

I was in the UK this week – I’m always fascinated to watch the TV ads and see the differences in approach between the UK and the US.

One ad that really grated was a Renault car ad – it will become clear why!

The premise of that ad is a tour bus taking visitors around to view star’s homes in the Hollywood hills (presumably), big houses, pools, expensive cars, etc., etc.

The typical image that is portrayed of a luxurious and expensive lifestyle. The bus departs. The scene cuts to a guy on a radio saying ‘It’s OK, they’ve gone for the day’. What we see next at first made me smile. In each house, the big, expensive and exotic cars are moved into the garage, and the Renault moved from hiding, into the driveway.

Which is fine and dandy, quite amusing really. Except that Renault does NOT sell cars in the United States. I’ve never seen one anywhere. Not even an odd import (which I do see once in a while, Puegots, Citroens, etc.). Never a single Renault.

So, a bit of harmless fun you say?

Well after chewing it for a while, and playing devil’s advocate with myself, it still grates. Surely there is a truthful way to achieve the same end result? It troubles me that a company will play fast and loose with such a basic lie. As the body that supervises advertising in the UK, the Advertising Standards Authority, says:

“The main principles of the advertising standards codes are that ads should not mislead, cause harm, or offend.”

It clearly doesn’t offend or cause harm (well not to me at least), but what about that mislead bit?

Tell me if you think I’m being too pedantic……..