We need to talk

It seems that Cicero is now attracting comment from poets. Great to know that we are now attracting the attention of the literarati. Happy to allow poems but no limericks. Deal?

However our amanuensis who pores over the taxonomy on your behalf each week to assure its quality has complained that Cicero is displaying evidence of sesquipedalianism or a propensity to use big words. It is only showing off.

Hopefully the use of big words does not inhibit your enjoyment of these thoughts. It is a legacy of working in a VTTSB with apparatchiks who too display this tendency. Why use three syllable words when you can use words of more than 5 or 6 or 7 syllables to make your point backed up by the frequent use of TLAs or three letter acronyms? No wonder the Apparatchiks think no one understands them.

You will be aware from previous words that Cicero is a big fan of using nudge as a marketing tool empowering consumers to make the right behavioural choice without a Nanny, or even an au pair, approach.

It seems that such tactics are becoming widespread and Cicero was made aware of the gents’ urinals at Schipol airport which now have a small fly painted or etched onto the bowl. Results show an 80% reduction in spillage. You can work how this impressive result was achieved.

And no we are not taking the p#$%.............................quickly moving on.

We need to talk. Four small words guaranteed to send a chill racing through the blood of any male. Yet ‘we need to talk’ can sometimes be a powerful marketing strategy.

Before Cicero become Grand Fromage to a marketing team of Apparatchiks, Cicero worked for a business whose business was to facilitate connections. Last week the Head Honcho here called Cicero in his VTSSB to ask if he should start to twitter.

‘Go for it’, yelled Cicero, ‘Your business is all about making connections and to do that you must learn to use all the means you have to make connections with your customers and to allow them to make connections with each other.

‘Twittering is a perfect medium for doing this. It shows you are keen to talk. It demonstrates that your business is modern and progressive and not just for male, stale and pale businesses allowing you to appeal to a different demographic.

‘Sure there are risks. But your customers are going to talk about you whether you twitter or not and I’m sure these are overstated. And make sure you use the language of the medium to allow your followers to join in your debates and not the dry wonk speak of your usual debates.

‘You must go for it. It is 100% on brand for your business.

‘Now be about your business while I attend to matters of State.’

This conversation, however, set Cicero thinking. He wanted to understand why people, why customers feel the need to want to talk.

Is it right for brands and for businesses to starting or create conversations or to break into other people’s conversation which seems to be the basis of most brands social marketing strategy? Is it not more about allowing your market to talk about you with each other, a practice that is as old as ….well Cicero himself if not older? And that is saying something.

Talking about brands is part of life’s social fabric. It goes on. You do it. We all do it. Take a count of the number of times you talk about a brand or a business today that is not your own to friends, relations and colleagues. You will need more than one hand. And you do not need the tools of the age to allow you to do this. Nor are you playing ball with any social marketing strategy. You are just doing it.

You don’t talk to your friends about brands to persuade people to buy said brand or go to said shop but to let others know what is important to you and who you are. It allows relationships to develop. It gives people something to talk about, something to share.

So how do you use this insight of human behaviour to inform your marketing strategy?

You make your brand as interesting as possible so people want to talk about you. Make it part of the self identity of your market so that it says something about them and the tribe they belong to. Innovate often so that it gives people little things to talk about and often and fresh reasons to make contact. And be great at what you do so that people want to talk about you.

Last week Cicero purchased a new fangled plasmatic TV screen to adorn his living quarters from a local electrical retailer as opposed to a megalithic electrical superstore. The service and attention to detail from this retailer was second to none. He had gone out of his way to make sure Cicero was seen an individual with special needs, albeit one with no understanding of new technologies. And ever since Cicero has praised this guy across as many media and to as many people as he can.

People want to talk, they need to talk, some more than others. So use your Twitter, My Space, Linked In, Facebook etc etc etc, channels carefully and sparingly and strategically. You don’t need to talk. If your brand is good enough and strong enough it will happen whether you want it or not.

Is it only me…….but what is so special about this relationship?

Cicero finds the American reaction to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico very interesting. Sure it is an environmental tragedy and hard on all those whose livelihoods depend on fishing and tourism in the region but this is no excuse for the Brit bashing, populist, xenophobic, partisan, biased, jingoistic, error-strewn, blame-pointing, finger wagging, lecturn thumping, self indulgent, diversionary, arse covEring rhetoric being spouted by Obama and spewed forth by every other rabble rousing politician to the south of the 49th Parallel. It was an accident. It was not some sort of delayed response for Lexington and the War of Independence. Accidents do happen. Get over it.

It is sad that 11 people died and for the families of those oil workers who died it is indeed a tragedy but it is worth pointing out that America is no stranger to leaving behind a trail of death and destruction but they move on without even a glance back.

How much death and destruction was caused by the Yankee in Vietnam? Iraq? Afghanistan? And here we are not talking shrimps, guillemots and sea gulls but people. And let us not forget Bhopal where in an instant an American company, yes an American company, slaughtered 3000 people in an afternoon and left thousands more chronically ill. And yet here the victims only received a little over £300 in full and final settlement. No talk there of ring fencing billions to pay for the clean up, to compensate victims. Nor any talk about preventing dividends from being paid.

So unlike BP, which is promising to pay billions in costs for the damage it caused putting at risk its very existence. And, Mr Obama, it’s BP not ‘British pause for emphasis Petroleum’.

Now it might only be me but quite frankly I fail to see what is so special in the relationship we have with the US. Unless of course it is so special because we honour our obligations and commitments to the rest of the world. Compared to America that is not just special but unique.

So lay off us. Those in glass houses should not throw stones.

Have a great week.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.