Knowing how eagle eyed you are, you will have spotted that Cicero has resorted to the lucre of advertising. Do not fret. This will in no way compromise my integrity to say what I think needs to be said. The revenues from advertising will subsidise and democratise my words and those of like-minded and even cleverer thinkers than me, meaning that they become accessible to the global poor, and the chance to be a force for good and for change.
And please note that my mention last week of KFC and ‘The Whopper’ were not paid for product placements. Now that’s an idea………
Last week it was geese and I promised you that I would also talk about cows. And so this week I bring you Old Cow, New Cow Theory, a theory handed down to me from the Dales of Yorkshire by a fine Dales woman. And as I have learnt, her thoughts and ideas not only govern all human relationships, especially those between men and women, but also explain the relationship between a business and its customers.
I know your eyes are now rolling heavenward but please bear with me, I can assure you it will be worth it.
First the science and the rural psychology. Old Cow, New Cow theory is derived from a number of seminal studies based on the mating preferences of the male cow. Firstly a bull is presented with a cow. They mate. When the bull is presented with the same cow to mate again, the bull is not interested. He wanted New Cow and this was Old Cow. It is the thrill of the chase that motivates, excites and interests the bull.
Is this in any way relevant? Stick with it. It will become clear,
Think on the efforts some businesses make to win and attract new customers, or in farming terms, new cows. We get all excited and stimulated by new customers. We flatter them, we pay them attention, we offer them all sort of inducements to come and join us. But the minute they become a customer they become old cow, we lose interest in them and we begin to treat them accordingly.
Let us consider for a moment the people who market us mobile phones, utilities, banking, insurance, credit cards and the like and let us look at the behaviours going on there. New cows get bonus rates, discounts and the best deals. Old cows gradually see interest rates dwindle, charges increased, prices go up and margins widened. I don’t know if you have seen the ads but Nationwide in its advertising makes the point absurdly well. Only new customers are allowed to use the manager’s pen. You only get offered juicy worms until you go in the keep bag.
And yet marketing theory emphasis that it is more efficient and effective to retain customers rather than make continual and costly efforts to recruit new customers. The High St is awash with brands and businesses pursuing the New Cow strategy. Why is it not possible for those businesses to focus at least as much of their marketing attention and their marketing investment on Old Cows and ensuring that we offer them the best possible service that they will keep coming back and keep spreading the news? Why can’t customers be as important as prospects?
I understand the marketing and business logic. I understand profitability is driven by the back book and not by the new cows joining that are heavily subsidised by the old cows. However it is no wonder that in this environment that there are rate tarts that are always chasing the best price, rate and deal. They have been created by our marketing efforts. Why should they be loyal to my brand when the brand has hardly been loyal to them?
The brand that is able to turn old cow, new cow theory on its head and prove it wrong, will be the brand and business that wins going forward. But maybe, just maybe, it is impossible to buck the mysterious and strange forces of nature. But at least let’s try.
And now that I have run this theory past your eyes (get it?), I hope you understand what I am going on about. I long for a brand and a business that can defeat these forces and that can milk this point of difference. Long may it continue to be different from the ‘udders’.
And on that note and before my punning degenerates to even new lows I’m off. But if I get any more useful and interesting moos, I mean news, or insights from Farming Today or from the people of the Dales, I will be sure to pass them on. And if you ever get invited to dine with farming stock, at least you will have something to talk about.
And finally. Is it me? I don’t know if you heard it but on the day that the government gave the go ahead to build the third runway at Heathrow, much to the chagrin of the enviro-mentalists and with much gnashing teeth from the eco warriors, I heard an interview with the head teacher from the local primary school who was desperately upset that the school would now have to close and the children would have to leave their friends and find a new school. Is it me but did no one think to tell the head teacher that by the time the first excavators and JCBs turn up on site, and by the time the neo Swampies have been prised from their tunnels and trees, these kids, so upset at losing their friends, will have been through school and university and armed with their degrees will be flipping burgers. Why do the media prefer a good heart rending emotion to rational and cold facts? I sometimes think we are the only clear sighted and clear thinking people left.
Have a great week. Et este fortunatus
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Monday 26 January 2009
Monday 19 January 2009
Honk! Honk!
I have just finished watching a great DVD.
Now I know what you are thinking. But I can assure you that this DVD was perfectly honest, legal and decent. And no it was not ‘Mama Mia’ though having seen this film and having listened to Pierce Brosnan’s attempts to warble his way through some of Benny and Bjorn’s finest songsmithing, I realise that there might yet be hopes for me to make it as a singer. If you don’t think I can make it as a writer then, as Al Jolson, and Ronnie Reagan, said, ‘you ain’t heard nothing yet’.
No, this DVD was about geese and I want this week to share my learnings from geese with you. And believe me they are relevant. My very good friend, Virgil, has written about bees in his wonderful book, ‘The Georgics’, and what he did for bees I am now going to do for geese.
You may know that I am a keen proponent of business lessons from nature. I have learnt much from Dales men and women over the years. And if you rise early and listen to ‘Farming Today’ you will learn many lessons from rural folk that might be applied to you and your business. Indeed one day I will share with you my cow theory of marketing, a lesson I learnt in the dales of Yorkshire.
Anyway I am convinced that there are better and more informative MBA lessons in the fields, waters and skies around us than at Harvard, INSEAD or the University of West Acton (I am sure there must be a university there, there is everywhere else these days). I prefer to look around me and seek inspiration in the world of nature. And it’s free. As is reading my words of wit, wisdom and enlightenment.
But for now the cows of Yorkshire can wait. Back to geese and my DVD. I am sure that given the level of insight and understanding you have, as demonstrated by the fact that you read me each week, that you will know all this already and be applying these thoughts day in, day out. However it does no harm to be reminded from time to time.
Did you know that when each goose flaps its wings it creates an uplift for the goose following behind and so by flying in a V formation the whole flock increases its range by 71%? It is no accident that when you see geese in the night sky they are always giving us the Churchill salute. And so, like geese, if we work together, if we learn to trust the efforts of those around us, if we put aside petty politics and point scoring to share a common destination, we can help our teams and each other get to where we want to want to go and achieve what we want to achieve more easily and with less effort
And I am sure you will already know that when a goose falls out of formation and starts to fly alone, it suddenly feels resistance and everything becomes a lot more effort. When this happens the lone goose will quickly get back into the formation. If we have as much sense we will stay in formation with those heading our way and accept their help and support to get there and everything will become so much easier.
And even when a goose has to drop out of formation because it is sick or can’t keep up, two geese will drop out of the formation and follow it down to help and protect it. Do we do this? Do we take the time to stand by and to help and support those who are struggling or finding things hard and difficult? If we learn from geese we will stand by each other in difficult times as well as when we are strong and we will find ways to help and support each other until they are strong enough to re-join the formation.
But even leaders tire and need support and help but when a lead goose tires it drops back into formation and another goose will take over. By applying the intelligence of geese to our world we would realise that it is better and more effective for us all to share the hard tasks around our teams. But we can only do this if we learn to respect and protect each other’s abilities and capabilities and the contribution we can all make to the team.
Now I thought when I see geese flying overhead that their honking was random and without purpose and was being done to annoy us and to keep us awake. But no, my new understanding of the psychology of these winged MBA lessons reveal that when you hear their honking it is being done by the geese flying in formation to encourage those up front to keep up their speed. In business we don’t do enough honking to encourage those around us. I am sure that if we were to learn the art of encouragement through quality honking individual empowerment and group productivity would become much greater. When was the last time you spoke words of encouragement to someone in your team? When was the last time you honked?
So all together now…honk, honk, honk.
And now for this week’s ‘Is it me?’ piece. Have you seen the new ad campaign, ‘change for life’? This is the latest attempt by the nanny state to preach and sermonise to us. This time they are trying to get us to eat healthily and exercise. All over town I come across their moralising and sermonising ads. Now the funny thing is that every ad for this campaign is cheek by jowl, quite literally juxtapositioned, with an ad for a KFC bargain bucket or a Whopper or some other demonised nourishment. Is it me?
You would have thought that if they were going to preach righteous eating and lifestyles at us someone somewhere in the bowels of the Government’s propaganda department might have bought their media a bit more sensibly. If anyone spots one of these ads next to something a bit healthier, like an ad for carrots or prune juice, please do let me know. I look forward to hearing from you.
By the way, in response to your feedback, you can never accuse me of not keeping the customer experience under continuous improvement, I have made it easier for you to post comment, questions and criticism on my ramblings. Well at least I think I have. So now you have no excuse for not sharing your thoughts with me.
Have a great week. Et este fortunatus.
Now I know what you are thinking. But I can assure you that this DVD was perfectly honest, legal and decent. And no it was not ‘Mama Mia’ though having seen this film and having listened to Pierce Brosnan’s attempts to warble his way through some of Benny and Bjorn’s finest songsmithing, I realise that there might yet be hopes for me to make it as a singer. If you don’t think I can make it as a writer then, as Al Jolson, and Ronnie Reagan, said, ‘you ain’t heard nothing yet’.
No, this DVD was about geese and I want this week to share my learnings from geese with you. And believe me they are relevant. My very good friend, Virgil, has written about bees in his wonderful book, ‘The Georgics’, and what he did for bees I am now going to do for geese.
You may know that I am a keen proponent of business lessons from nature. I have learnt much from Dales men and women over the years. And if you rise early and listen to ‘Farming Today’ you will learn many lessons from rural folk that might be applied to you and your business. Indeed one day I will share with you my cow theory of marketing, a lesson I learnt in the dales of Yorkshire.
Anyway I am convinced that there are better and more informative MBA lessons in the fields, waters and skies around us than at Harvard, INSEAD or the University of West Acton (I am sure there must be a university there, there is everywhere else these days). I prefer to look around me and seek inspiration in the world of nature. And it’s free. As is reading my words of wit, wisdom and enlightenment.
But for now the cows of Yorkshire can wait. Back to geese and my DVD. I am sure that given the level of insight and understanding you have, as demonstrated by the fact that you read me each week, that you will know all this already and be applying these thoughts day in, day out. However it does no harm to be reminded from time to time.
Did you know that when each goose flaps its wings it creates an uplift for the goose following behind and so by flying in a V formation the whole flock increases its range by 71%? It is no accident that when you see geese in the night sky they are always giving us the Churchill salute. And so, like geese, if we work together, if we learn to trust the efforts of those around us, if we put aside petty politics and point scoring to share a common destination, we can help our teams and each other get to where we want to want to go and achieve what we want to achieve more easily and with less effort
And I am sure you will already know that when a goose falls out of formation and starts to fly alone, it suddenly feels resistance and everything becomes a lot more effort. When this happens the lone goose will quickly get back into the formation. If we have as much sense we will stay in formation with those heading our way and accept their help and support to get there and everything will become so much easier.
And even when a goose has to drop out of formation because it is sick or can’t keep up, two geese will drop out of the formation and follow it down to help and protect it. Do we do this? Do we take the time to stand by and to help and support those who are struggling or finding things hard and difficult? If we learn from geese we will stand by each other in difficult times as well as when we are strong and we will find ways to help and support each other until they are strong enough to re-join the formation.
But even leaders tire and need support and help but when a lead goose tires it drops back into formation and another goose will take over. By applying the intelligence of geese to our world we would realise that it is better and more effective for us all to share the hard tasks around our teams. But we can only do this if we learn to respect and protect each other’s abilities and capabilities and the contribution we can all make to the team.
Now I thought when I see geese flying overhead that their honking was random and without purpose and was being done to annoy us and to keep us awake. But no, my new understanding of the psychology of these winged MBA lessons reveal that when you hear their honking it is being done by the geese flying in formation to encourage those up front to keep up their speed. In business we don’t do enough honking to encourage those around us. I am sure that if we were to learn the art of encouragement through quality honking individual empowerment and group productivity would become much greater. When was the last time you spoke words of encouragement to someone in your team? When was the last time you honked?
So all together now…honk, honk, honk.
And now for this week’s ‘Is it me?’ piece. Have you seen the new ad campaign, ‘change for life’? This is the latest attempt by the nanny state to preach and sermonise to us. This time they are trying to get us to eat healthily and exercise. All over town I come across their moralising and sermonising ads. Now the funny thing is that every ad for this campaign is cheek by jowl, quite literally juxtapositioned, with an ad for a KFC bargain bucket or a Whopper or some other demonised nourishment. Is it me?
You would have thought that if they were going to preach righteous eating and lifestyles at us someone somewhere in the bowels of the Government’s propaganda department might have bought their media a bit more sensibly. If anyone spots one of these ads next to something a bit healthier, like an ad for carrots or prune juice, please do let me know. I look forward to hearing from you.
By the way, in response to your feedback, you can never accuse me of not keeping the customer experience under continuous improvement, I have made it easier for you to post comment, questions and criticism on my ramblings. Well at least I think I have. So now you have no excuse for not sharing your thoughts with me.
Have a great week. Et este fortunatus.
Monday 12 January 2009
Your ads aren't working
Over the holiday period I heard from so many of you from around the globe who seem to have nothing better to do than read my wit and wisdom. And yes, I have it on good authority that I am read internationally from pole to pole, from continent to continent and across the Ridings. I have now become a global phenomenon. I was told that I was now a cult. Or at least I think that was what the man said. The room was very noisy. So to all of you who think I am a cult, thank you.
Now onto more serious matters.
As someone who has spent their entire life at the marketing coal face, I have a great responsibility to see that the investment my business makes in marketing is not wasted and that we get as many bangs for our marketing buck as we can. There are many ways that businesses might waste the money they invest in advertising or promoting themselves to customers and potential customers. They might produce a really naff advert that says all the wrong things about them like…no, I had better not go there, I might want to work for them. So sadly no names, no pack drills.
Or their ads or marketing investment might not get noticed. It might for example be appearing in all the wrong places and not be noticed by its target audience. The sort of thing that might happen if 4x4 car manufacturers were to advertise in the Green Gazette or some other enviro-mentalist rag, albeit an organic rag, of course. Hopefully you get the point and see what I am driving at here, no pun intended.
But over the holiday period I was reminded of the most powerful way to ruin and spoil and undermine a business’s marketing effort.
Do you know who in your organisation or business works in marketing? If not you should.
You all work in marketing and that includes you, yes you. You might not know it but you are as critical to the marketing effort of your business as those who might have the word ‘marketing’ in their job description or title. In my book, in any business you are either serving the customer or helping those who serve the customer do their job better. And if you are not doing either of those jobs, what are exactly are you doing? And if this point is not taken on board, your business too is in imminent danger of wasting whatever it spends on advertising or on promoting itself to its customers.
Let me give you a great and real life example of this. And yes this really did happen to me though again no names will be revealed to protect the guilty. I might want to work for them too. They certainly could do with something like me to help sharpen up their customer experience.
For the past month or so I have been trying to resolve a fairly straightforward query with my credit card. At least it should be straightforward but this is an organisation which does not accept my theory that we all work in marketing and where those dealing with customers are let down by those designing the systems and processes designed to help but which only get in the way of giving great, not just good, customer service.
Having been bounced off four geo-stationary satellites positioned above the earth’s oceans and having had my call to a historic and very pretty English town routed via the arid and sun kissed plains of the Indian sub-continent, I experienced all the horrors of trying to deal with a faceless call centre. To start with the call centre menu did not give me an option to speak to an operator. And no one, from the hugely important customer service representative to the decidedly less important marketing manager, I spoke to on my many calls into this organisation seemed to be aware of this. Does anyone not check the customer experience? Whose responsibility is this?
And responsibility was a big issue with this organisation. You will know from my previous outpourings of wit, wisdom and enlightenment in this space that I am a fervent apostle of picking up the napkin. In this company not only was the napkin not picked up but also roads were crossed and people would go round the block to avoid even seeing it. Every observation I made to improve the experience I was offered, and if you know me you will know that these observations would be many and trenchant, was greeted, if that is the right word, with the response that they were only following procedures. People have been hung for only following procedures.
It was not possible to be given names and phone numbers. It was not possible to be transferred. It was not possible to be given a call back at my convenience but only at their convenience. And yes we do take customer service very seriously and your call is important to us. Why do these businesses think I have nothing more important to do than wait by the phone and wait for their call? It is of course true that I do have nothing better to do but I am not going to admit that.
And when the department which writes the letters, and these are a separate bunch of people from those who speak to you, and who work in a hermetically sealed room with no contact with the outside world, or so I am told, did eventually getting round to writing to me with the additional information I requested, the letter had clearly been written by someone on work experience from the local primary school who had not yet mastered the basics of spelling, grammar or punctuation and who failed to appreciate the convention that everything communicates. Clearly they knew and were embarrassed by this as the letter failed to give any clue as to the writer’s name, position or department and they hid behind the anonymity of the corporate squiggle. A big no-no as far as I am concerned.
Now this is a company that advertises a lot. You will see their name writ large on TV screens, in the press, on posters, in fact if the space can be used for advertising they will be there, that is how big they are. For me though they have found the most effective way to waste all this investment.
So what is the moral of this winter tale? There are a few. We all work in marketing and we all have a responsibility for making sure that everything we do is focussed on giving the customer the best experience we can give. It means we should work together to identify and remove the barriers that get in the way of helping the customer and doing what is right for them. It means we should all regularly test and try our customer experience to see where it goes wrong. And please please sign your letters. If we can all do this and accept these ideas and beliefs, anything our business spends on marketing will not be wasted.
And remember too we all have a responsibility as customers. If we accept bad or poor service, we condemn the next customer to bad service. We legitimise it. We condone it with our apathy. So kick up a fuss. I do.
Finally I hate this time of year. Once you take the cards down and pack away the tree and other Christmas baubles the world looks grey, dismal and empty. It is now the long haul back to the long days and short nights of summer with only the rugby 6 Nations with its perennial and unrequited hope of a Scots triumph, and the sunny green spectacle of the US Masters, to look forward to. And so to cheer you up here is my top tip for a cheap and quick laugh if you are at a loose end. Why don’t you pop into your local branch of Specsavers, go up to the staff and ask for a Big Mac and fries. Sorry, should have gone to Specsavers.
Have a great week. Et este fortanatus
Now onto more serious matters.
As someone who has spent their entire life at the marketing coal face, I have a great responsibility to see that the investment my business makes in marketing is not wasted and that we get as many bangs for our marketing buck as we can. There are many ways that businesses might waste the money they invest in advertising or promoting themselves to customers and potential customers. They might produce a really naff advert that says all the wrong things about them like…no, I had better not go there, I might want to work for them. So sadly no names, no pack drills.
Or their ads or marketing investment might not get noticed. It might for example be appearing in all the wrong places and not be noticed by its target audience. The sort of thing that might happen if 4x4 car manufacturers were to advertise in the Green Gazette or some other enviro-mentalist rag, albeit an organic rag, of course. Hopefully you get the point and see what I am driving at here, no pun intended.
But over the holiday period I was reminded of the most powerful way to ruin and spoil and undermine a business’s marketing effort.
Do you know who in your organisation or business works in marketing? If not you should.
You all work in marketing and that includes you, yes you. You might not know it but you are as critical to the marketing effort of your business as those who might have the word ‘marketing’ in their job description or title. In my book, in any business you are either serving the customer or helping those who serve the customer do their job better. And if you are not doing either of those jobs, what are exactly are you doing? And if this point is not taken on board, your business too is in imminent danger of wasting whatever it spends on advertising or on promoting itself to its customers.
Let me give you a great and real life example of this. And yes this really did happen to me though again no names will be revealed to protect the guilty. I might want to work for them too. They certainly could do with something like me to help sharpen up their customer experience.
For the past month or so I have been trying to resolve a fairly straightforward query with my credit card. At least it should be straightforward but this is an organisation which does not accept my theory that we all work in marketing and where those dealing with customers are let down by those designing the systems and processes designed to help but which only get in the way of giving great, not just good, customer service.
Having been bounced off four geo-stationary satellites positioned above the earth’s oceans and having had my call to a historic and very pretty English town routed via the arid and sun kissed plains of the Indian sub-continent, I experienced all the horrors of trying to deal with a faceless call centre. To start with the call centre menu did not give me an option to speak to an operator. And no one, from the hugely important customer service representative to the decidedly less important marketing manager, I spoke to on my many calls into this organisation seemed to be aware of this. Does anyone not check the customer experience? Whose responsibility is this?
And responsibility was a big issue with this organisation. You will know from my previous outpourings of wit, wisdom and enlightenment in this space that I am a fervent apostle of picking up the napkin. In this company not only was the napkin not picked up but also roads were crossed and people would go round the block to avoid even seeing it. Every observation I made to improve the experience I was offered, and if you know me you will know that these observations would be many and trenchant, was greeted, if that is the right word, with the response that they were only following procedures. People have been hung for only following procedures.
It was not possible to be given names and phone numbers. It was not possible to be transferred. It was not possible to be given a call back at my convenience but only at their convenience. And yes we do take customer service very seriously and your call is important to us. Why do these businesses think I have nothing more important to do than wait by the phone and wait for their call? It is of course true that I do have nothing better to do but I am not going to admit that.
And when the department which writes the letters, and these are a separate bunch of people from those who speak to you, and who work in a hermetically sealed room with no contact with the outside world, or so I am told, did eventually getting round to writing to me with the additional information I requested, the letter had clearly been written by someone on work experience from the local primary school who had not yet mastered the basics of spelling, grammar or punctuation and who failed to appreciate the convention that everything communicates. Clearly they knew and were embarrassed by this as the letter failed to give any clue as to the writer’s name, position or department and they hid behind the anonymity of the corporate squiggle. A big no-no as far as I am concerned.
Now this is a company that advertises a lot. You will see their name writ large on TV screens, in the press, on posters, in fact if the space can be used for advertising they will be there, that is how big they are. For me though they have found the most effective way to waste all this investment.
So what is the moral of this winter tale? There are a few. We all work in marketing and we all have a responsibility for making sure that everything we do is focussed on giving the customer the best experience we can give. It means we should work together to identify and remove the barriers that get in the way of helping the customer and doing what is right for them. It means we should all regularly test and try our customer experience to see where it goes wrong. And please please sign your letters. If we can all do this and accept these ideas and beliefs, anything our business spends on marketing will not be wasted.
And remember too we all have a responsibility as customers. If we accept bad or poor service, we condemn the next customer to bad service. We legitimise it. We condone it with our apathy. So kick up a fuss. I do.
Finally I hate this time of year. Once you take the cards down and pack away the tree and other Christmas baubles the world looks grey, dismal and empty. It is now the long haul back to the long days and short nights of summer with only the rugby 6 Nations with its perennial and unrequited hope of a Scots triumph, and the sunny green spectacle of the US Masters, to look forward to. And so to cheer you up here is my top tip for a cheap and quick laugh if you are at a loose end. Why don’t you pop into your local branch of Specsavers, go up to the staff and ask for a Big Mac and fries. Sorry, should have gone to Specsavers.
Have a great week. Et este fortanatus
Friday 2 January 2009
1066 and all that!
Felix sit annus novus.
To our Celtic tribes to the north, lang may yer lum reek. This broadly translates as ‘ Long may your chimney smoke’. And nope, I have no idea what it means either.
And to everyone else a Happy New Year and welcome back for another year of Cicero Speaks wit and wisdom. I trust you had a good break.
Before I start today’s words of enlightenment, I would like to thank those of you posting comments and feedback. It is good to know there are people out there reading me. And not only are you passing comments, I even have four followers. Thank you. As someone pointed out another 8 and I will have as many as Jesus. In his early days obviously. And I am in no way comparing myself to Him.
Did you read the recent proposal to take history off the National Curriculum and to merge it with car mechanics or civic duties or some such nonsense? No doubt this has been decreed by the curriculum gauleiters so that there might be time to study such life enriching subjects such as health and safety for beginners or green studies. I was appalled. History was and is my subject. I fell in love with it at an early age and that explains a lot about me. Some of the most exciting, most dramatic and most mysterious stories in human existence are episodes in world history. Unless they are from the Byzantine Period, the Middle Ages or Britain in the 18th century obviously. But that still leaves an awfully lot of history to read, consider and study.
Now I am not going to go off on one and go on and on relentlessly about government education policy and our Big Brother, we know best, one size fits all approach to the management of our education. Sorry to disappoint.
Instead I want to explain the relevance and importance of history to me as a marketing guru and to business. For this is one of the most frequent questions I get asked by young hot shots fresh out of university armed with their shiny business degrees. And I despair. They might have fed their brain with models and 2x2 matrices but they have starved their soul. And it is my mission to help them get back in touch with their heart. For the soul and the heart are as important in business as the rational and the brain.
History is the most important subject anyone can ever learn. Ok, I will accept that it might have limited relevance if you want to build a bridge, be a brain surgeon or a farmer, or work in health and safety (though maybe if you did want to work in health and safety and you did study history, you would understand its irrelevance) but for a career in business it is the best training anyone’s brains could have.
In explaining why, I want to move beyond the cliché so memorably summed up by Winston Churchill who once said that ‘those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it’. While true, the importance of history is far more than that.
For me as a marketer, history is about people. It is not about dates. Nor is it just about kings and queens and battles and stuff like that. It is about people, mostly ordinary people. People whose voices are only sometimes heard and their lives glimpsed. And it about understanding why people behave the way they do and the consequences of that behaviour on themselves, their communities and on history.
Marketing too is about people. It is about ensuring you understand the behaviour of people and how they will feel, think and act about your brand, product and service. So if you understand history, you understand people and you are well on the road to becoming a great marketer. Trust me on this one.
And there is another reason why history is great training.
In the days when today’s history was yesterday’s present and on News at Ten, I was studying the subject. Obviously history in those days was far easier as there was less of it around.
In those halcyon days of my acne and angst ridden youth, I was answering questions like was World War 2 inevitable; or was Henry the Eighth’s English reformation the start of modern Britain; or did the Norman Conquest wipe out the Anglo Saxon tradition of government and church. Today I am trying to find out if there is a market for a niche online savings proposition for a bank. And I am so grateful for my history training. Yes really.
Sure I am no longer required to go into the Treaty of Versailles; or discuss the setting up of a16th century English civil service new tools of government; or debate the significance of Bishop Wulfstan to the Norman church. But I am still required to assemble facts and data, to analyse these facts and to construct a logical and cogent argument that answers the question. Same as I did when I was studying Norman, Tudor and European history.
So in my world no one would ever get a job in marketing or in business unless they had a good history degree. Fortunately for all the accountants out there, many of whom now running major businesses, we are not in my world. More’s the pity.
And finally. Here’s a thought. Over the Christmas and New Year break I got lost and in doing so I finally understood the reasons behind the credit crunch. I am a man and when we get lost we stubbornly refuse to admit we are lost and to seek directions. We see it as a sign of weakness. Men run most banks. They were buying and selling and stuffing their balance sheets with a whole range of complex financial instruments described through an alphabet soup of TLAs, or three letter acronyms. They did not understand what was going on. And like the man lost somewhere in middle England, the wiring in our DNA, evolved over countless millennia, means we can not and will not ask for directions. The result, the credit crunch. Eat your heart out, Robert Peston.
And most finally, now that some of you seem to have got the hang of using the technology to post comments and pithy remarks, and I thank for you these, please feel free to suggest any ideas, topics or issues on which you would like to hear my thoughts and opinions. I will do requests.
Have a great week. Et este fortanatus.
To our Celtic tribes to the north, lang may yer lum reek. This broadly translates as ‘ Long may your chimney smoke’. And nope, I have no idea what it means either.
And to everyone else a Happy New Year and welcome back for another year of Cicero Speaks wit and wisdom. I trust you had a good break.
Before I start today’s words of enlightenment, I would like to thank those of you posting comments and feedback. It is good to know there are people out there reading me. And not only are you passing comments, I even have four followers. Thank you. As someone pointed out another 8 and I will have as many as Jesus. In his early days obviously. And I am in no way comparing myself to Him.
Did you read the recent proposal to take history off the National Curriculum and to merge it with car mechanics or civic duties or some such nonsense? No doubt this has been decreed by the curriculum gauleiters so that there might be time to study such life enriching subjects such as health and safety for beginners or green studies. I was appalled. History was and is my subject. I fell in love with it at an early age and that explains a lot about me. Some of the most exciting, most dramatic and most mysterious stories in human existence are episodes in world history. Unless they are from the Byzantine Period, the Middle Ages or Britain in the 18th century obviously. But that still leaves an awfully lot of history to read, consider and study.
Now I am not going to go off on one and go on and on relentlessly about government education policy and our Big Brother, we know best, one size fits all approach to the management of our education. Sorry to disappoint.
Instead I want to explain the relevance and importance of history to me as a marketing guru and to business. For this is one of the most frequent questions I get asked by young hot shots fresh out of university armed with their shiny business degrees. And I despair. They might have fed their brain with models and 2x2 matrices but they have starved their soul. And it is my mission to help them get back in touch with their heart. For the soul and the heart are as important in business as the rational and the brain.
History is the most important subject anyone can ever learn. Ok, I will accept that it might have limited relevance if you want to build a bridge, be a brain surgeon or a farmer, or work in health and safety (though maybe if you did want to work in health and safety and you did study history, you would understand its irrelevance) but for a career in business it is the best training anyone’s brains could have.
In explaining why, I want to move beyond the cliché so memorably summed up by Winston Churchill who once said that ‘those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it’. While true, the importance of history is far more than that.
For me as a marketer, history is about people. It is not about dates. Nor is it just about kings and queens and battles and stuff like that. It is about people, mostly ordinary people. People whose voices are only sometimes heard and their lives glimpsed. And it about understanding why people behave the way they do and the consequences of that behaviour on themselves, their communities and on history.
Marketing too is about people. It is about ensuring you understand the behaviour of people and how they will feel, think and act about your brand, product and service. So if you understand history, you understand people and you are well on the road to becoming a great marketer. Trust me on this one.
And there is another reason why history is great training.
In the days when today’s history was yesterday’s present and on News at Ten, I was studying the subject. Obviously history in those days was far easier as there was less of it around.
In those halcyon days of my acne and angst ridden youth, I was answering questions like was World War 2 inevitable; or was Henry the Eighth’s English reformation the start of modern Britain; or did the Norman Conquest wipe out the Anglo Saxon tradition of government and church. Today I am trying to find out if there is a market for a niche online savings proposition for a bank. And I am so grateful for my history training. Yes really.
Sure I am no longer required to go into the Treaty of Versailles; or discuss the setting up of a16th century English civil service new tools of government; or debate the significance of Bishop Wulfstan to the Norman church. But I am still required to assemble facts and data, to analyse these facts and to construct a logical and cogent argument that answers the question. Same as I did when I was studying Norman, Tudor and European history.
So in my world no one would ever get a job in marketing or in business unless they had a good history degree. Fortunately for all the accountants out there, many of whom now running major businesses, we are not in my world. More’s the pity.
And finally. Here’s a thought. Over the Christmas and New Year break I got lost and in doing so I finally understood the reasons behind the credit crunch. I am a man and when we get lost we stubbornly refuse to admit we are lost and to seek directions. We see it as a sign of weakness. Men run most banks. They were buying and selling and stuffing their balance sheets with a whole range of complex financial instruments described through an alphabet soup of TLAs, or three letter acronyms. They did not understand what was going on. And like the man lost somewhere in middle England, the wiring in our DNA, evolved over countless millennia, means we can not and will not ask for directions. The result, the credit crunch. Eat your heart out, Robert Peston.
And most finally, now that some of you seem to have got the hang of using the technology to post comments and pithy remarks, and I thank for you these, please feel free to suggest any ideas, topics or issues on which you would like to hear my thoughts and opinions. I will do requests.
Have a great week. Et este fortanatus.
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