An ego the size of a house

Habemus novum Caesarem. Iam habemus duo novos Caesares.

Yes, we now have two new Caesars for the price of one-a real BOGOF deal which is no doubt what those wearing red rosettes would like to say those now residing in their former manor.

It matters not a whit to us, State Apparatchiks manning our VTSSBs, how many Caesars we have or what colour rosettes they are wearing. All will be served with equal levels of slavish devotion. And our borders and your security are still in the safest of hands.

Moving away from politics you will recall that a few weeks back we talked about holding horses and black and blue ink. Well it seems that these words are read by a genuine ink expert who writes to inform us that black ink has greater security properties than blue ink which is why we are always ordered by bureaucratic busy bodies to write official stuff in black ink and not blue ink. Now we learn something new every day. Hopefully that was not a State secret which has just been disclosed.

You should also be advised that we now have an honorary (which means you don’t get paid) amanuensis for these words. Indeed just like Caesar we now have two of them. This should eliminate the typographical errors which sometimes creep into the enlightenment published here. It would seem that Cicero has groupies keen to perform this valuable service on behalf of us all. We are all indebted. At least it means that these words should from now on be even better than before. These now come quality assured after having been whizzed virtually to the borders with our Celtic cousins. Although it would be better if someone could speak the language of Ovid, Virgil and Catullus.

And an apology must be offered to all charity workers who were described as such last week. If this is you, sorry. It seems that you wish to be described as charity professionals. We are happy to set the record straight.

It is often said that by those who speak in clichés that there is no ‘i’ in team. Yes you are right. Well done. It is great to know that these annoying people can spell. But there is an ‘i’ in marketing and that ‘I’ can be very useful to those of us working in marketing.

Let me explain.

What is ‘I’ in Cicero’s native tongue? Sorry to be so pedantic on this but as you will know the Latin for ‘I’ is ego. And never under-estimate the power and influence of ego in marketing. For ego can be an immensely powerful driver to encourage our customers to buy from us or to achieve the behaviour shift we require.

It is true-associating something with our positive self image and appealing to our egos can be an effective marketing strategy. We are all driven by a desire to maintain a positive self image and to project self esteem. We all need our egos stroked regularly, even Marketing Grand Fromages, especially marketing Grand Fromages.

It has been proven for example that men will give more to charity when approached by an attractive young woman. They do not want to appear mean and so dig deep. It might be shallow but if it works for you and your business, go for it. Maybe that is what is meant by a charity professional. (We will now get letters on this).

And another example to illustrate this point.

Hotel rooms these days are too mean to wash towels. They hide behind the eco-mentalism excuse but in reality we all know it’s about costs.

A sign in one hotel experimenting with different ways to shift and influence behaviour which asked for people to re-use their towels generated a 35% response. This went up to 45% when the sign said that most guests re-used their towels at least once during their stay. And went up again to a whopping 62% when the sign that the previous occupant of this room was kind to the environment and re-used his towels.

Wham! The ego and the competitive spirit of subsequent guests were hooked and the necessary behaviour changes flowed like re-cycled water.

Think about all the examples of great marketing out there, encouraging us to buy or to behave in a given way by appealing to our self esteem, by stroking our egos. It might not all be about advertising but subtly and across many influences, brands, charities and even State Apparatchiks are working across the channels and touch points to give our egos a firm and warm stroke. And bet you do not even notice it.

And so Cheryl Cole strokes the ego of women. Men can play tennis like a Federer, football like a Henri and golf, and maybe more, like Tiger, if only they use a certain kind of shaver. And by using Oxo Cubes you will get the perfect family.

There might not be an ‘i’ in team but there is a huge and very important ‘I’ in marketing. Go on and use it your advantage.

Is it only me………but is this the result we wanted?

Cicero would like to add one final thought to the millions of others that have been published in recent days and weeks on the election of a new Caesar. He would like to get this very important thought off his chest.

Over past few days it has often been said by our ruling classes that the carefully calibrated result of the election is because we the populus were unwilling to trust just one party to address the issues and challenges we faced. Hence we the populus voted for the kind of power sharing system we now appear to have.

This is an errant nonsense.

To deliver a result like this it would surely have to be pre-planned. Surely also it would mean a big meeting where the millions of us who voted, and perhaps some of those who failed to get out of the pub in time to scribble their X, got together and agreed how we would vote to engineer this result. If such a meeting was ever called or even if there was a teleconference to discuss this issue, no invite reached Cicero.

Now, it might only be me but unless such a meeting was held and no one invited Cicero given his oft radical thoughts, surely the result we got was a totally random outcome of the millions of individual decisions we all made before and after we stepped behind the wee municipal-issue curtain. And it would be really interesting to know if anyone out there really did want this random outcome or whether any minds would have been changed if we had known this was the outcome they were going to get. Democracy while wonderful can be strange.

What do you think?

And one final thought. Maybe next time we should just let Simon Cowell and Mrs Ashley Cole decide. They decide just about everything else. Now that would be a real X Factor.

The thought is just too scary to contemplate.

Have a great week.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.