Finally, this is getting fun.  There has been much ado in the media about Toyota’s recent quality problems and subsequent recalls.  Some pundits have been forecasting Toyota’s demise, while others have predicted that they will use this as an opportunity to turn the business around much like McNeil Labs (Johnson & Johnson) did in the wake of the Tylenol poisonings in 1982.

Regarding the latter of the opposing arguments, I think McNeil was positioned slightly better on two fronts.  First, McNeil’s negligence, if there was any, was in not foreseeing the potential for product tampering and not taking steps to package the product more securely.  That is, McNeil was not directly responsible for the crisis.  Toyota is in a situation of its own making.  The second point is that Tylenol did not have a large competitor with the U.S. government as its biggest stock holder.  Toyota is facing inquiry from the same congressmen and regulatory agencies that have recently purchased loads of General Motors stock.  Hmmm.

So, the question is, how do the two big auto companies play their hands to their advantage?

If GM follows the advice of the famous Chinese General Sun Tsu, it would use its new found weapon (friends in Washington, D.C.) to claim the victory that Toyota has handed to them.  Robert Greene, author of 48 Laws of Power would suggest that GM crush Toyota totally.  Can this be done?  Actually, if congress and other U.S. authorities can keep Toyota off balance by continuing with inquiries that keep Toyota in the news, and GM can come forth with truly superior products, I think they can pull this off.  Should they do it?  I’m not going to wade into a discussion about the American government owning a large corporation, but I think there is a great discussion about the “end result” ethical philosophy here.  I am truly ambivalent on this situation and I look forward to see how GM plays this out.

Toyota, on the other hand needs to stay the course in showing how their focus is the customer and their commitment to supplying high quality products.  Hushing dealers, covering up problems, and complaining about what the boys in Washington are doing, are a distraction and might be Toyota’s undoing.  Also, Toyota needed to apologize and move on, it seems like they may be over apologizing, which will put them in a weaker position then they already are.  I am not saying Toyota will go away, but they could suffer a setback that may take decades to recover from.

This report from NPR’s Marketplace will illustrate some of the tensions I’ve discussed.  What do you think?  I’m looking forward to your comments on this one.
 
 
Hello all,

I recently conducted a national webinar for the American Advertising Federation as a part of their “From the Source” series.  I’d like to thank Josh Guterman from the AAF for making this happen, and I’d like to encourage you to share this with your friends and colleagues.  If anyone has any questions for me, please post them as comments and I will answer them promptly.

Thanks,

Gaetan
2010-01-27_out_of_control_marketing.wmv
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Applied Woo 01/27/2010
 
In their book, Art of Woo (Penguin 2007), authors Richard Shell and Mario Moussa present “the selling of ideas”  from a sales/negotiation perspective.  Despite their rather broad framing of the subject  their discourse is highly instructive for Marketing Public Relations professionals.  One of several points that are worth noting is their discussion of barriers to woo.  Shell and Moussa consider relationships, credibility, communications mismatches, belief systems, and interest and needs to be the major obstructions to successful persuasion, and, I will argue, they are the same hurdles faced by marketers when pitching journalists and other connectors. 

 Clearly, relationships are critical to PR.  The better we know our connectors and the better they know us, the more likely our chances of getting media mentions  from connectors picking up our stories, or by their coming to us for assistance on something they are already working on. 

Credibility is obvious, but the key to being a trusted source and strengthening the newsworthiness of a pitch. 

Communications mismatches manifest themselves in the mundane and operational side of PR when marketers forget to pitch connectors in the format and in the timeframe that suits the connector best.  Is a journalist more receptive to a phone call, email, or a letter in the mail?  Is there a certain time of day week, or month that is typically best?  Communications mismatches also occur when styles clash.  For some editors and journalists bold, over-the-top pitches work really well, for others, they do not. 

A match also needs to exist between the story you are pitching and the belief system of the connector.  In the case of pitching in PR it is more about knowing the mission and audience of the connector’s medium than understanding the socio-cultural profile of the connector himself, although both are important. 

The last barrier is one that MPR pros are keenly aware of-interests and needs.  Connector are charged with producing content that is interesting to their audience, is in line with the mission of their medium, and supports their editorial calendar.  If you can show how it will also please their advertisers or help their medium’s sales people sell into a specific issue or episode, you’ve struck gold.

Check out Art of Woo.
 
 
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Surely, you’ve seen this by now, but I need to point it out here.  Sometimes, ads can be great PR.  Benetton and P.E.T.A. have been both provocative and effective with their use of advertisements to generate media attention.  Now Weatherproof has done it with their billboard depicting President Obama at the Great Wall of China wearing one of their jackets.  The White House lawyers got into the act, but not before the media had spread the story and image all over the world.  The New York Times, the Huffington Post, and Fox News are just a sampling of the thousands of media mentions this ad received.

Great job Weatherproof!  Now if I can just get a snap of the President reading my book.
 
 
Yes, it is the job of the MPR professional to get media mentions and spread word-of-mouth for his or her company, brand, and/or products.  To that end, I’d like to say the folks at Weis Markets, a supermarket chain based in Sunbury, Pa., did their job when an article based on their December 31, 2009, press release, “Weis Markets Lowers Prices on 2,600 Staple Items and Freezes These Lower Prices for 90 Days,” appeared on the front page of the “Money” section of Allentown’s Morning Call.  This is great for Weis Markets. Or is it?  I am a bit concerned by the fact that the article, “Weis Lowers Prices on 2,600 Products,” is a rewrite of the press release and appears to be a thinly veiled “advertorial” for one the Morning Call’s bigger advertisers.  

What do you think?

Quite frankly, a supermarket lowering prices in a recession is not news-it’s a

promotional campaign. Sometimes, it is worth the time of a company’s

Marketing/PR department to help journalists by providing them with press

releases that read like news.  Otherwise, a great media mention loses the

credibility that makes PR so powerful in the first place.
 
You Are Immortal 12/15/2009
 
“You are immortal. The result of everything you do today will last forever.” - Piers Fawkes from an e-book entitled, “What Matters Now,” complied by Seth Godin.

You are about to get bombarded by year end lists, “best of…,” “worst of..., “things to watch,” and so on.  My suggestion is to ignore all of those and spend some time with What Matters Now.  This collection will help you in your marketing efforts by helping you understand people and our time a little better.  It may even help you understand yourself.  I promise it will make you think.   

Passing this along is my holiday gift to you.  Please return the favor by passing it on to others.  

Be well.
 
 
This is normally the sort of thing that I’d just re-tweet, but I want to have a record of this so you know where to find the link when you need it.  Thanks to Mark Flavin for this post.

You're Invited.  Join the MPR group on Facebook.
 
 
If you are interested in hearing me speak about Out of Control Marketing (a.k.a. Marketing Public  Relations) you can listen to WDIY (88.1 FM in Bethlehem, PA) from 6:00-7:00 pm EST on December 17, 2009.  If you can’t tune in you can click here to listen on the web.

I’ll be giving a national webinar for the American Advertising Federation as a part of their “From the Source” series.  This will be held at 2 pm EST on January 27, 2010.  You can find out more or register by clicking here.

On Saint Patrick’s Day I will be the main speaker at Kutztown University's “Seeking Solutions” series.  The event runs from noon until 4:00PM EST.  Click here for details or here for a brochure.

I hope you can join me at one of these venues.

I've also posted my November 30th interview on internet radio KBZNZ's Sparks to Flame show below.
 
 
If South Park had an evolutionary psychologist as a character it would be Geoffrey Miller, professor at the University of New Mexico, and author of Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior.  Miller uses his irreverent writing style to explain global consumer culture through the application of the science of human nature.  This is a particularly good book for marketers as it uses up-to-date science to explain why we, as humans, buy, and why we are often trapped by the allure of consumerism.  He bases his argument on the notion that our needs and wants are driven by a psychological (or perhaps biological) predisposition to behave in a manner that signals our physical and mental fitness, and thereby, increases our likelihood of finding mating opportunities and receiving social support from friends and family.

Marketers will find this approach satisfying as Miller points out that we have been relying on an outdated model for understanding what drives consumers to want and buy things-namely Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need.  Spent’s model suggests that humans display conspicuous waste, conspicuous precision, and conspicuous reputation to signal mating and social fitness. (You’ll have to read the book for specifics.) Fitness indicators manifest themselves through general intelligence and five personality factors.  (If you are familiar with the NEO Personality Inventory, you’ll recognize these factors.)   When applied to market segmentation, message creation, and media selection, it is my belief that marketers will find this approach more profitable and more socially responsible than the conventional “marketing as a business process” method.

From a literary point of view, most will find this book an easy read.  Miller’s writing is in the pop-intellectual style made fashionable by Gladwell, but the academician occasionally bleeds through.  He offers a fair amount of social commentary which is often arguable, but always well thought out and provocative.

You are invited! Become an MPR Facebook Fan.
 
 
Take notice, the current philosophy of marketing is moving from the marketing concept where “customer is king” and shifting toward the interaction concept, where relationship is king, and the brand is owned by both the firm and the customer.  In this segment of PRI’s To the Best of Our Knowledge, author of New York Times Magazine’s column, “Consumed,” Rob Walker discusses how word-of-mouth can support or radically change the meaning of a brand.  This well illustrates how stories conveying reputation, relationship, experience, and symbolism define the value of a brand.

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