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Salvete, amici.
It seems that you think that the non appearance of these musings on account of the recent inclement weather was considered by you a pretty lame excuse. How could the populus even consider that Cicero might hide behind the weather? But if you do think that then please accept these humble words of apology.
However given the level of disruption produced by a few snow flakes and the rush to inaction in so many areas induced by the health and safety issues inherent in said snow flakes, it is surely not totally inappropriate that Cicero’s non appearance might be a part of this trend.
Anyway the weather this week has been so much kinder making non appearance inexcusable.
There have also been questions asked about an update on the lifts in the TSSB. Happily, and unlike many other items of the nation’s infrastructure brought to its knees by the recent spate of wonky weather, the lifts have worked magnificently well and all lifts continue to operate satisfactorily. Yes, you did read it right. All lifts are working. One more reason for the apparatus of the state to work at its best on your behalf. Have you noticed the difference? An improvement in your security perhaps? Enhanced quality of public services, maybe?
And before moving on, Cicero would like to thank the devotee who gave Cicero a biography of oneself. It is a mightily good read. Cicero is indebted even though it is very weird reading about oneself in the words of another.
Do you remember Cicero’s Marketing Professional friend or MPF? Last week Cicero was sheltering with said MPF from the inclement weather in a local taverna discussing what makes great marketing.
What a great topic.
For Cicero great marketing is about making choices. It is being clear about what you are going to do and what you are not going to do; who your brand is going to serve and who you won’t; what your brand will stand for and what it won’t.
Anything else is beige marketing. And matt beige at that. It is drab, insipid and uninspiring. It might be done well but it is not great marketing. Quite frankly it is dull.
Great marketing for Cicero means being clear about whom you want your potential customers to be and who they are not. It means understanding their emotional and functional needs and defining and segmenting them on this basis. Great marketing is based on targeting specific clusters of shared needs.
And it means tight targeting. Great marketing is built on keeping the faith and accepting that targeting fewer customers means better results. And this is delivered when the demands of the sales and finance directors for more and more power, in true USS Enterprise fashion are strongly and decisively resisted Sometimes the marketing just ‘cannae take it, captain’. Sometimes great marketing might even mean devoting time and money to excluding people from your brand if it serves the business better.
Finally great marketing is based on a single minded 3 word positioning that eschews triangles, pyramids and wheels. It is being crystal clear about what the brand stands for, a definition that is tight, unambiguous and waffle free, and based on a meeting the needs of a well defined cluster of potential customers.
And that’s it. It’s all about choice and keeping faith to your choice. Great marketing might not be as random or as chancy as eeny, meeny, miny, mo but the principle is pretty much the same.
It seemed to satisfy Cicero’s MPF who returned to his TSSB to start to make his choices.
Is it only me?
It was interesting to see over the Xmas period the international response to the latest potential terrorist outrage in the skies over America. Of course the knee jerk response by all governments, including this one, was to improve security at airports which is rapidly becoming a byword for increased inconvenience and hassle for all. Indeed the level of hassle we are experiencing now when we try to fly is becoming such that it is this rather than the barmy arguments over the effects of flying on wonky weather which might give the eco-mentalists their greatest victory and reduce flyers which they claim are biggest nuisance to our weather. How ironic.
Is it only me who resents the increasing levels of hassle by over officious security personnel at airports when trying to fly?
It is about time that all those responsible for adding layer upon layer upon layer of inconvenient security measures so that they are seen to be doing something, realised that the vast majority of people who fly have done and are doing nothing wrong.
It is about time that they realised that it is not the Eskimos or retired librarians from Nether Wallop or stressed and harassed families trying to reach Disneyland or other continental sunspots that are threatening lives and blowing up planes.
If you really want to protect us all, minimise the hassle we all face and allow us to enjoy the airport experience, might I implore the authorities to look for the tell tale risk indicators, and hassle and inconvenience those who appear risky. Body scan them. Get them to remove their shoes, coats, belts and just about anything else that can be removed. Strip search the risky ones, with rubber gloves if necessary.
If that means we have to be a wee bit non PC, good. I’m all for that. I just don’t like being assumed guilty until some electronic gizmo gives me the all clear. It is frankly annoying, de-grading and hugely inconvenient. And I’m not sure it even works.
If we have computers that can predict the climate is going to hot up decades hence, that the oceans are going to rise 27 inches over the next 47 years and even the thickage of the Polar ice cap 61 years and 8 months hence, surely we can identify those most likely to be willing to blow an airlines from the sky and subject them to a lot of annoying, fruitless, and time wasting hassle and inconvenience.
Have a great week.
Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.
6 comments:
Thank you Cicero for another enthralling lesson on marketing and an update on the lift situation. But let me move on to your views on prevention of terrorism. 'Strip search the risky ones' you say. Now who exactly do you mean? Muslims? People of a Middle Easter appearance? Hmmmmm! Fatal flaw there. Those who have committed atrocities have come from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds. And don't you think that those groups capable of such sophisticated bomb plots as that of the world trade towers, Madrid railway station and the London bombings, would not also have the intellectual capability to recruit those who don't conform to racial stereotypes of what a fundamentalist Muslim bomber might look like? Think again Cicero and don't apply for a job with the anti-terrorist squad any time soon.
What we need to do is work out why such people want to bomb us back to the middle ages and counter the arguments they use. I think you would expect such a response from a Guardianista such as myself but I do have some personal experience of the impact of terrorism. In my country the British government locked up those suspected (not charged with) acts of terrorism in the mid 1970s. It was the best recruitment drive the recruitment drive the terrorist groups could have had. Your security proposals would I imagine see the numbers of those wanting to join the cause of killing the 'infidel' soar.
Think again Cicero and don't apply for a job with the anti-terrorist squad any time soon.
Cicero, you have lost it this time. I was with you until I got the bit about airports and terrorists. I hope you check under your car every morning and vary your route to work! But as always a right riveting read.
Cicero would like to reply the anonymous Guardianista. At no point did Cicero say that he would single out Muslims or people of a middle eastern appearance. Instead Cicero argued that we should work on risk indiactors e.g. a pretty big risk indicator is if you have been to Yemen or you have bought a one way ticket or paid with cash. There are people with brains the size of planets in government and it should not be beyond their genius to work out who might constitute a risk and for whatever reason. This is not a race argument or a religious one but a risk one. As a male Cicero pays more car insurance as it is deemed I am more risky. Similarly smokers pay more for their life insurance. It is a well establised principle and we should stop being coy and pc on this issue.
I love the argument about importance of making choice for great marketing. There are loads of case studies of businesses who have lost way becuase they did not follow this dictum-M&S springs to mind. Am studying marketing at uni and I find your thinking and thoughts on marketing interesting. Could you come and lecture to us?
'At no point did Cicero say that he would single out Muslims or people of a middle eastern appearance.' True, you did not single out Muslims or those from the ME but your mention of Eskimos conveyed the message that there was a racial type that were more likely to be involved in terrorist attacks. Neither did you mention the one-way tickets or payment by cash as particularly useful clues in the fight against terror. (A point which I am entirely in agreement with.) Perhaps it would have been better if you had included that in your original post, for more clarity. I stand by my original comment though that targeting certain groups is not the only answer. We need to understand the underlying causes to such acts and I am not so sure those in government, however large their brains, have the capacity to do that.
Anonymous guardinista says 'your mention of Eskimos conveyed the message that there was a racial type that were more likely to be involved in terrorist attacks'. I leave it to the court of public opinion to answer this point. Cicero does take the point that we need to tackle the root causes. Of course we do. But we need to have more one club in bag and in meantime we should not be hassling or inconveniencing the vast majority of people who no matter race or creed do not look like a bomber or a terrorist threat. Whatver happend to innocent until proven guilty. This principle is becoming increasingly eroded and airports a microcosm of this erosion.
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