Seems every marketing book claims to offer the silver bullet—the marketing secret that guarantees incredible success. I’ve read 100’s of marketing books—including some great ones—but there are no shortcuts, folks.

To be a Responsible Marketer, you need a strong grounding in the fundamentals.

You won’t learn them in a three-day seminar, and probably don’t have the time to return to college, so what do you do?

Read Marketing Management by Philip Kotler and Kevin Lane Keller.

Amazon’s description is spot on:

Kotler/Keller is the gold standard in the marketing management discipline because it continues to reflect the latest changes in marketing theory and practice.

Topics covered include brand equity, customer value analysis, database marketing, e-commerce, value networks, hybrid channels, supply chain management, segmentation, targeting, positioning, and integrated marketing communications.

For marketing professionals who place special emphasis to creativity and imagination in marketing management.

At 816 pages, this book is huge, but don’t let the size fool you. It’s filled with diagrams and case studies that make it an easier read than many textbooks. This book will back-fill the things you don’t know and give you a great foundation to build on.

Though it’s expensive ($120 at Amazon with a $53 discount!) I’d suggest owning a copy to use as go-to marketing reference (I do).

If you are serious about Responsible Marketing, you should read it, at least once, cover to cover.

So, if you could recommend just one good foundational marketing book, what would it be?

Please comment below to share.

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I’m innocent! Innocent I tell you!

I have no idea what I did to deserve this, but I was arrested and have been sentenced to hard-time in some gulag — I think I heard them call it “The Keg.”

Sounds scary.

I’ll be booked into jail on September 17th. I’ve been told if I can post $1,000 in bail before lockup they’ll go easy on me—they might even let me out the same day.

If not, no more Responsible Marketing Blog—there’s no Wi-Fi in the big house, ya know.

Can you donate $500? $250? $100? $50? $25? Anything will help!

To make donating easy, I’ve set up this simple widget. All credit and debit cards are accepted.

I’m really worried about this.

They keep saying, “You’re going behind bars for good!”

Correct me if I’m wrong, but that sounds like they mean forever to me.

Any and all donations appreciated.

Your 100% tax-deductible donation will help MDA continue research for treatments and cures for 43 neuromuscular diseases.

Your support of the MDA Lock-Up will also help provide wheelchairs, clinic visits, support groups and summer camp for the families served by the MDA.

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Our marketing assessments are a bit of a loss-leader but they give prospects the chance to sample us with a low-cost project—and give us the opportunity to make sure we’re a great fit.

Part of our assessment includes a review the client’s past marketing efforts including their marketing collateral, advertising, direct marketing, public relations efforts, website, and so on.

Problems often reveal themselves immediately:

Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg, but you get the point.

Though we’re hired to help clients identify and isolate problem areas and then fix them, some decision-makers are quick to defend their existing resources.

Here are some of the comments we’ve heard over the years:

We need to give _______ our printing—he’s been helping us for years

We like to spread it around among our local vendors

Our designer is really reasonable

We need to work with _______ because they are my [insert relationship here]

XYZ Company gives us $X of business a year—we have to use them

First, I hope the logic breakdown is self-evident: If the current vendors are responsible for mediocrity, shouldn’t they expect more of the same? Keep doing the same thing, you’ll get the same results, after all.

This is a shame, because in the name of loyalty, these hard-working business people are settling for substandard work. I’d argue their loyalty should be to delivering maximum value and results to their shareholders, employees and customers.

So the next time you find yourself saying, “but we can’t make a change because we owe it to so-and-so,”—STOP.

You owe it to yourself and everyone else that depends on your organization to be casting responsible and have the best marketing company you can possibly have.

So, where have you seen misplaced loyalties?

Comment below to weigh in.

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. . .

Note: I don’t have an axe to grind. Indeed, we do prefer to work with our carefully selected tried-and-true team of partners and vendors (it’s all about quality control and better integration). Except in limited cases, we don’t require clients to work with our resources.

You can probably tell I’m a fan of Integrated Marketing Communications, so maybe it’s no surprise that one of our central positions at Outsource Marketing is called a “Marketing Integrator.”

Our goal is to deliver strategic, seamless and sustainable marketing, and our Marketing Integrators are are a big part of the way we make “strategic” and “seamless” work.

Here’s what they do:

To my knowledge, Outsource Marketing is the only place you can find someone with the “Marketing Integrator” title, but you don’t need us to improve your marketing.

While we’d obviously be happy to help, you really just need to find a talented and disciplined marketing field general that understands IMC and knows which tools to use and when—and has a good book of high-quality resources they can rely upon. They are a rare breed, but they’re out there.

If you find one and don’t hire them, send their resume to me.

So, how many marketing vendors are you managing right now?

Comment below to weigh in.

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I’ve been intrigued by the legs Awards for sale: Not a rewarding experience has had since I posted it on July 22nd, just under a month ago.

The Ballard Agency received an award from the U.S. Local Business Association that was clearly a deceptive marketing tactic similar to the phony domain name and Yellow Pages bills that are sent in hopes your A/P department will pay them in error.

To date, there have been 22 comments from people that received an email notification of the award, thought something was fishy, then pulled up the blog post after doing a Google search.

Tim Brosnan from the Centre Stage summed up what it was like to receive the award well:

A quick visit to the USLBA Web site dispelled any excitement I might have felt about our professional theater in Greenville, SC winning a national award.

Who else in Greenville had won awards?
No answer.

What’s the history of the USLBA?
No answer.

Who runs it?
No answer.

Is there a phone number to call?
No.

Now what do we do?
Buy a plaque.

What’s the plaque cost?
Enter all your contact information to find out.

Now I have a new term to toss around at cocktail parties: “vanity scam.”

“Vanity scam” is my favorite phrase of the week.

A few takeaways:

Please share any vanity scams or other questionable marketing practices you come across. Whenever possible, I’ll post them, and we’ll do some good—together.

Where have you seen questionable marketing practices such as false advertising, bait and switch, vanity scams and such?

Comment below to share your story.

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Next time you are talking to someone that “knows” marketing, ask them what IMC is.

If they know the acronym stands for “Integrated Marketing Communications,” they get a star.

If they tell you, “IMC is when all your marketing communications are working together—your printed materials, your website, your advertising, direct marketing, new media and your PR are all speaking with one voice,” they get a second star.

And if they go on to tell you, “it’s when you are speaking with the same voice to all your internal and external constituencies,” they get a third star.

Then ask them “what else?”

If they can’t take it any further, they may have three stars, but they don’t know IMC.

For five years, from 1997-2002, I instructed the second term of the Integrated Marketing Communications program at the University of Washington. Our curriculum was fashioned after Northwestern’s IMC program, instructed by Don Schultz (who coined the phrase), Philip Kotler and few of other great marketing minds.

Schultz and Kotler would tell you that everything above is just table stakes. Of course everything works together, and of course you are speaking with the same voice to all your internal and external audiences. There’s nothing groundbreaking there.

Integrated Marketing Communications is about integrating the customer into the company.

It’s not about putting widgets or services in the marketplace based on what you think customers need.

Instead, it’s becoming a responsive organization driven by consumer insights that knows its customers’ wishes, wants, needs and desires—and then creating products and services to fill those needs.

IMC argues you need to get to know the customer better than your competitors, and maybe even better than they know themselves.

A true IMC company is closer to the customer, and would never be nervous or ashamed to have one sit in on a strategic marketing meeting—a true IMC company has the best interests of its customers in mind.

And that, my friends, is why IMC is Responsible Marketing.

So, what have you done to get closer to your customer?

Comment below to weigh in.

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If you watched the Olympics, you’ve seen Visa’s pervasive Go World ads.

Morgan Freeman’s distinctive voice always grabs me, but the relevance and timeliness of the ads have kept my attention.

Here’s the ad Visa ran immediately after Michael Phelps won his unprecedented 8th Gold Medal.

View this video on YouTube.

Impressive.

Each Visa ad has closed with the following line:

Visa.
Proud sponsor of the Olympic Games.
And the only card accepted there.

Visa’s exclusive arrangement lets them say as much in all their advertising, and a high percentage of the people attending the games sign up for a new card. Of course, Visa’s exclusivity also means if you want to use a credit card when you are there, it can only be a Visa.

And that’s the problem.

Not everyone that goes to the games realizes their AMEX, Mastercard or other competing card will be useless. Those without a Visa are forced to use often expensive exchange options and deal with all the hassles of working with foreign currency.

Rohit Barghava is blogging from Beijing and believes Visa’s exclusivity strategy is backfiring:

The end result is lots of negative experiences and consumer anger against Visa, including several people I spoke to who even said they would NOT get a new Visa card because of this tactic. The incremental sales and revenue for Visa cards at the Games may be good, but the word of mouth generated for Visa at the world’s largest sporting event is nearly all negative.

Given the above, do you believe Visa’s sponsorship of the 2008 Beijing Olympics is responsible or not?

Comment below to weigh in.

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Watching the greatest Olympians inspires.

The competition is fierce, and to succeed at the highest level these dedicated athletes train for years.

Day in and day out, they work at their craft to swim faster, jump higher or hit with greater precision.

Whatever it is, it’s their singular focus—and they know how to win.

It’s for these reasons, you wouldn’t consider trying to compete against Michael Phelps in water or Usain Bolt on land.

You simply wouldn’t stand a chance.

You face fierce competition every day, too—and not just from companies with professional marketing departments. You compete with information overload, cynical consumers and a slumping economy, to boot.

So, what are you doing to compete?

Comment below to share.

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Earlier this summer, Outsource Marketing participated in The Olympus Press Print Green Summit, an annual event attended by over 250 people from 150 companies to focus on ways to, well, print greener.

Olympus sponsored an interesting origami-making contest. To enter, contestants created an origami character with special FSC certified paper, took a picture of it in the real world and then submitted the photo via email. Three winners received a cash prize to designate a charity in their name.

Victoria Ostrovskaya and Mary Kate Baker (pictured) of Outsource Marketing submitted “The Frog Prince,” below:

Guess what? They came in third place!

We designated The Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust as the recipient for our $200 prize.

The first place winner was Origami Bird by Danielle Reynolds, a local freelance designer. Her $500 prize was donated to The World Wildlife Fund.

Second place went to Hawaiian Cleaner Wrasse meets the Clean Green Fish by Margarite Hargrave of The Seattle Aquarium. Their $300 prize was donated to The Trust for Public Land.

Kudos to Olympus Press for educating, inspiring and engaging the community on this oh-so-important topic. What a great way to get people involved and do some good.

And way to go, Victoria and Mary Kate, for your creativity and the energy you put forth to help our clients market more responsibly.

So, Responsible Marketer, what have you done to reduce your marketing carbon footprint?

Comment below to share.

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Have you heard about the Members Project from American Express?

It’s a social good promotion built to encourage people to “come together to achieve something amazing.” Card members are invited to submit ideas for projects in the areas of arts and culture, community development, education, environment and wildlife, and health. Anyone, including non-cardmembers, can discuss, campaign for, and then vote on their favorite projects.

Here’s a recent ad for the campaign:

View this video on YouTube

American Express will award $2.5 million dollars to the top five projects ($1.5 million for the winning project). Last year’s winning project helped provide two billion liters of clean drinking water for children, and the second, third and fourth place projects helped plant trees, restore national parks, create wind and solar powered generators and connect people with public schools to help out with classroom needs.

Currently, 427 projects have been submitted. The project in the lead, “Adopt a Classroom. Support America’s Teachers,” has 1,584 votes.

A win-win-win campaign for AMEX

Site visitors win because they get to do some good by nominating and/or voting for the causes they believe in.

The causes win whether they are one of the five finalists or not—this campaign is being supported by a significant ad campaign reaching millions of people. These causes will gain exposure they might not otherwise receive.

And of course, AMEX wins. This isn’t new territory for the company—they coined the phrase “cause marketing,” after all. But this campaign takes it to a whole new level. AMEX has used social media to create social good and engaged cardmembers and non-cardmembers alike.

What do you think of the Members Project? All good or all hype?

Comment below to weigh in.

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Special thanks to Super Intern Marie Kyle of Outsource Marketing for her assistance with this post!