Want to know what Responsible Marketing is about but don’t have the time to read our white paper on the topic?
Well, here’s “The 7 Keys to Responsible Marketing in 2 Minutes,” featuring the characters you’ve grown to love (or hate) in our Responsible Marketing web shorts.
There ya go—with a video that short, now everyone has time to learn about Responsible Marketing. Share away. 
Whether you are red or blue, you can’t deny Barack Obama’s marketing prowess. Here are a few lessons every organization should consider when they are seeking ‘votes’ from prospects:
Develop strategies based on consumer insights. The Obama campaign clearly understood where America was hurting most, and developed strategies in response.
Build an organization that can deliver that strategy. Obama was casting responsible, fielding an impressive team from the very start.
Own a unique position. Hillary and Barack stood out in a sea of mostly white guys. While Obama was new, different and attractive as a brand, he claimed the word “change” first. It was the thing the market wanted most, and when others tried to claim “change,” they looked like copycats.
Work from a plan. The Obama campaign never veered very far off course from their original plan. They said they would compete in and win in red states—and they did just that.
Stay on message. From the primaries through the general election, Obama did a better job than his opponent at staying on message. Though distracted more than once, like clockwork, he would faithfully return to his message strategy.
Get a great name. Okay, maybe his name didn’t help him much.
Offer form and substance. While Obama’s marketing was the best presidential politics has ever seen, his opponent’s statements that he was a great orator but simply wasn’t ready to lead fell on deaf ears. His policies resonated better with voters, and his delivery, especially later in the campaign, were downright Presidential.
Stay positive. “Yes we can” trumps “No you can’t” every time.
Work from the ground up. Over 90% of the $640 million raised by Barack Obama came from individuals, and the bulk of that was contributions under $200.
Respond to the competition immediately. Smear tactics were often responded to within minutes by Obama’s staff and the candidate himself. The campaign’s Fight the Smears site helped spread the truth to supporters and the media.
Pick partners that reinforce your strengths and make up for your weaknesses. Obama chose a running mate that filled one of his greatest weaknesses by selecting Joe Biden, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Embrace social media. The Obama campaign did a masterful job using social networking sites, using word of mouth campaigns that often went viral.
Remember all your audiences. As a minority, Obama understood he would have some cross-cultural appeal. Still, Team Obama pursued an ambitious multicultural marketing effort. Here’s an ad that aired in Puerto Rico:
The strategies above aren’t red or blue. They’re green—the color of money.
So did you pick up any other marketing tips during the campaign that might translate well to your organization?
Comment below to share.
Photo: Rainer Jensen/European Pressphoto Agency, via The New York Times
I’ve often found myself explaining the difference between Advertising and Public Relations—primarily, what to use and when.
I also find myself defending Advertising far too often.
It’s an easy target, and its benefits are deeply misunderstood and under appreciated.
I’ve had a small tome on this subject cooking for the book and was going to distill it down into something a little more ‘bloggy’ and digestible.
Now I don’t have to.
Freddy Nager at The Cool Rules Pronto Blog wrote a post comparing the two quite nicely, then building a strong argument for discipline integration in Public Relations vs. Advertising: No Contest.
Here’s an excerpt:
So what’s my recommended approach? Integrate both publicity and advertising into your marketing campaign. They complement each others’ strengths and mitigate weaknesses, with the publicity providing the credibility while the advertising creates the buzz.
Let’s look at the case of Jack In The Box, a west-coast fast-food chain. In 1993, Jack In The Box suffered a major e. coli crisis, wherein some customers actually died. Since the chain was already struggling before this happened, the crisis could have led to bankruptcy. But a brilliant new campaign by advertising genius Dick Sittig — featuring the return of the Jack mascot with an attitude — signaled a bold renewal of the company and won over legions of new fans who happily stuck tiny Jack heads on their car antennas.
At the same time, Jack In The Box implemented an industry-leading food safety program that it actively promoted through the media. Note the separation of church and state here: Food safety? PR, since safety commercials are rarely entertaining enough to get noticed. Funny mascot? Advertising, since it’s hard to convey humor through the press. Together? A revived brand that’s now expanding nationwide… with — I must mention — some pretty good ice cream shakes.
I couldn’t agree more, and when considering the Advertising and PR academically, they are often combined anyway:
The point is, this is not an “or” statement, but an “and” statement. It’s not Advertising or PR, it’s Advertising and PR.
On their own, these disciplines suffer weaknesses difficult to overcome. But together, your Advertising can get people talking, then your P.R. can get people believing.
So, what’s the best integrated Advertising/P.R. effort you’ve seen?
Comment below to weigh in.
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.
. . .
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.
Some people think trust is gained through integrity only. Not so, says Steven M.R. Covey in The Speed of Trust. Trust is equal parts character and competence.
Here’s how character and competence are directly related to Responsible Marketing:
It takes more than just doing marketing right. For long-term success, you really have to do the right thing, too. And while if You can do the right thing, but if you execute your marketing poorly, it won’t matter.
But if you can execute your marketing well and communicate character, you really have something.
What are you doing to build trust with your customers and prospects?
Comment below to share.
There are seven keys to Responsible Marketing.
Most would agree the first four keys are necessary just to do marketing right:
The three keys necessary if marketers want to gain the respect and trust of customers and do the right thing are:
Some have told me they believe Responsible Marketing is marketing infused with equal parts logic and heart.
And without heart, does creativity, strategy and everything else loses its relevance?
Do you believe marketing needs a heart to be effective?
Comment below to weigh in.
Image: Frank Chimero Illustration & Design, via AdPulp.
Prime rate to remain stable, Bernanke says
By Gene Weingarten
The Washington Post
Sunday, June 22, 2008; Page W32
If you are like I, you are pretty sick of reading articles about how the financially-troubled newspaper industry is making desperation budget cutting moves: Downsizing its products, laying off staff, buying prostitutes for advertisers, and so forth. But believe me, you’d be even sicker of it if you were INSIDE a typical American newsroom these days, where it’s sometimes hard to hear over the 200 decibel background drone of human whining.
One frequent newsroom complaint is that they are cutting back drastically in the use of copyeditors. It’s true, but I for one am not complaining. I say good riddance.
The era of the copy editor is gone. Copyeditors were once an important part of the journalism process, back when journalists weren’t as educated as they are now. Back then, your typical reporter was named ‘Scoop” and he was a semi-literate cigar-smoking, fannie-pinching drunk with bad teeth in a wrinkled suit and a card that said PRESS stuck in the hat-band of his fedora, and they’d generate their stories by bribing sources, pistol-whipping people into talking, eavesdropping from inside closets, etc. A reporter was hired for cheek and muscle, not their writing skill, so you needed an extra layer of editing.
Copy editors were fine-tuners, fixing basic but important things that a first line of editing might’nt catch: Typos, errors in facts, spelling, syntax, punctuation, clarity, word usage, style, parallelism, and not letting sentences run on. They would also bear principle responsibility for headlines, photo captions, story jump lines, as well as catching the occasional, inadvertent cultural insensitivity. Because the job requires patience, maturity, intelligence, attention to detail, and an extremely sedentary workday, fat old Jewish ladies have often made good copyeditors.
But nowadays, things have changed. “Scoop” is gone. Young reporters are all named “P. Laurence Butterfield Jr.” and they arrive at their first newspaper job fresh-faced and competent, straight from New Haven, Conn., with their high-faluting Princeton educations. They don’t need copyeditors.
This is a true fact: I’m writing this column the very week after dozens of copy editors left my newspaper through an early retirement buyout, and I have noticed no difference at all whatsoever in the quality, accuracy or readability of the product.
The inessentialness of copy editors is underscored by the advent of sophisticated spellchecking systems which have introduced a hole new level of error-free proofreading. No longer can we say that the editor’s penis mightier than the sword. The sword’s main foe is a computer now, and the computer is up to to the task.
But nowadays, things have changed. “Scoop” is gone. Young reporters are all named “P. Laurence Butterfield Jr.” and they arrive at their first newspaper jobs fresh-faced and competent, straight from New Haven, Conn., with their high-faluting Princeton educations. They don’t need copyeditors.
Truth to tell, I feel badly for all copy editors whom, I’m afraid, will suddenly find themselves out of a job. Time has past them by, however, defeated the Red Sox 6-5 in extra innings and it doesn’t make sense for us to weep for copyeditors anymore than it makes sense for us to lament the replacement of bank tellers with automated ATM machines.
So to all my former copyediting colleagues, I wish them a soft landing. Finally, I’d like to give particular shoutouts to my friends Pat Meyers and Bill O’Brien, two longtime copyeditors for the Washington Post who took the early retirement: We’ll miss ya, guys, even if we didn’t need you all that muck.
How good a copy editor would you be?
See how many of the 57 errors of fact, grammar, syntax and style in this column you can catch, and then read the corrections.
Gene Weingarten can be reached at weingarten@washpost.com.
