Prisoner 46664

Following last week’s comments on the snow and wonky weather, aka global warming, it has been pointed out that we should not judge the extent to which the world may or may not be warming up based on the weather outside our own front door. Exactly outside whose front door should such assessments be made? This sounds like typical eco-mentalist obfuscation.

And please note this is the last dose of wit and wisdom and spiritual enlightenment you are going to get this year. But there are plenty of back copies to keep you amused through the Saturnalian revels. And we will back for more fun and frolics in 2011 once the lums start to reek, as the Celtic tribes to the North say-which means when the chimneys start to smoke to everyone else.

You will know that Cicero no longer has responsibility for the protection of your security and the maintenance of your freedom and that for the past few months he has been advising businesses on how to do marketing better.

In recent weeks Cicero has been spending a lot of time trying to develop a set of words to describe various wannabe brands. This is the kind of thing that gives marketers their kicks. It is legal, doesn’t spoil your nose and still gives a great buzz. Sad I know.

No matter the brand, company, category, product, or service, the most common list of attributes everyone wants to be associated with goes something like this: honesty, accessibility, innovation, invention, forward thinking, collaborative, friendly, and easy to work with, trustworthy, leader, fun. Recognise the exercise? Now who wouldn't want to be all those things? Anyone want to be the opposite?

You might now better understand how difficult is the life of a marketing guru when every other brand has the same words on their list. This is not at all helpful when you are trying to make brands distinctive.

And so here is an exercise which is useful to move things forward.

‘Shout out the attributes of Nelson Mandela’ asked your favourite Marketing Guru ‘I’ll write them on the white board.’

"Brave," came the first response. "Courageous!" quickly followed. As did a whole list of attributes like "altruistic, heroic, peaceful, wise, thoughtful, giving, caring, loving, fearless" and so and so on. You will by now have caught the drift.

"What is the problem with this list?"

Deathly silence.

Then your Marketing Guru pointed to a colleague in the room, let's call him Bernard, and mused, "The problem with the list is that it describes Nelson Mandela, and it describes Bernard, a caring, wise, thoughtful, loving, giving and peaceful father and husband. But Bernard is not Nelson Mandela. Sorry, Bernard.

‘So what does Nelson Mandela stand for?’

‘Freedom’ they shouted with one voice.

"That," said Cicero, ‘is not just the difference between Bernard and old Mandiba, that is the difference between a true brand stance and an easy list of attributes.

‘ Understand your stance in the world, understand your true values, what you're actually up to and the why, your reason to get up in the morning — get that right, pursue that mission with full force and fury — and all the attributes you desire will surely follow’

Thirty people created a list of attributes that could describe anyone. But those same people also recognized instantly that Nelson Mandela is not a collection of attributes but a man of purpose, stance, value and pure mission in the world.

And from this we learn that that your brand will never be remembered for attributes but you will be remembered for what you do with them. Nail your market stance and all else will follow. It's not so much what you make and what you sell but why you do that matters and how you do it.

Don’t chase and measure yourself against a long list of attributes, many of which are just the price of entry for all. But instead always work hard to stay on mission and always execute against your stance and not against attributes. Measure the market's understanding of your reason to be — who you are and why you do what you do.

And if you can do all that, my son (and daughter of course), you will have built a great and strong brand. Just like Prisoner 46664. The man we know today as Nelson Mandela.

Is it only me........but what is happening to our sportsmen?

I don’t know if anyone else has noticed but aren’t our footballers getting soft? I might be mistaken, and sometimes when you get old your memory does start to play tricks, but I thought football was a tough, physical, manly sport played by real men. No longer.

Sure the laws have been tightened up so that the kind of guys who revelled in names like ‘Chopper’, ‘Razor’ and ‘Machete’ did not permanently disable you when they tried to get the ball from you, so I guess we must consider that good thing. This not an argument to re-instate football as a blood sport more suited to the Coliseum in Rome than the Emirates.

However I do draw the line at Fancy Dan Footballers with grotesque wages unable to spend a mere 90 minutes in the cold without feeling the need to insulate themselves from a drafty breeze. In my day, and here we are talking long before some Mad Scientist decided that our weather was warming, the only thing that stood between our pale white chafed skin tinged with pinky-blue shading was a thin nylon pair of shorts and top, though we did tend to wear thick socks. We got warm by running around for ninety minutes, a novel thought I know but it did seem to work.

But this does not seem enough for our Fancy Dans.

First they wore under-garments. I could live with that on basis that these help keep your muscles warm which is essential to avoid injury. Little did I know that this was merely the first step to them dressing like wimps. Then they started to wear gloves. And now they are wearing some fashion accessory called a snood, whatever that might be. In my book if it goes around your neck it’s a scarf.

Where will this wimpy behaviour end? It can’t be long before they start to wear trilby hats in the cold weather to go alongside their matching glove and scarf, sorry snood, combo, and overcoats in team colours for when it is especially cold. We might even get to see our Fancy Dan heroes in cashmere pashminas some day soon.

Now it might just be me but could I just point out that the football pitch is exactly that and not a fashion cat walk. It is where you do manly stuff like get stuck into other men who are wearing different colour tops from yours. Got it?

Do you have any views you might wish to share on this matter?

Have a great week and enjoy the Saturnalian revels.

We will see each other after our lums have started to reek.

Felix dies Nativitatis

Black Magic

Well it seems that last week’s dose of wit and wisdom upset the Guardianistas. It is always pleasing to see them upset.

However as always Cicero will not shy away or censor the critics who exercise their right to disagree and to contend. It is what we are here to do. In the words of Mao ‘let a thousand schools of thought contend....... let a thousand flowers bloom’. Of course this statement did lead to the horrors of the Cultural Revolution so maybe not.

Today we are going to use a card trick to illustrate this week’s key leadership thought. Given that card tricks are highly visual this might be as tricky as ventriloquism on the radio to pull off but if you are prepared to apply your imagination this might just work.

And if it does this will amaze and amuse those relatives, friends and visitors with whom you might be choosing to spend the forthcoming Saturnalian revels.

First of all write down the suit and number of a playing card on a blank sheet of paper, seal it and give it to someone in the room to hold. Tell no one the card you have written down. For the purposes of this exercise you might wish to heighten the drama at the outset by pretending to read minds. Of course you are doing no such thing.

Are you still following this?

Ok to make it easier to follow let us say you wrote the Jack of Diamonds.
Now you need to find a willing volunteer from your audience to be your Debbie McGee. Got one? Now to proceed with a trick which will baffle, astound and confound.

Ask Debbie to name the suits.

‘Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades’.

‘Now pick two of those suits and tell me which two you have selected’, you will ask. And this is where it gets tricky for she could pick any two suits at this point.
‘Hearts and Clubs’.

At this point you now need to start to vary and adapt your answer dependent on the answer Debbie has provided.

‘You have elected to throw away the Diamonds and the Spades. Now I find that very interesting choice and I would like to go a little bit deeper into your choice.’

At this point you as the master magician are waffling madly to ratchet up the tension and suspense and also applying distraction techniques to divert the minds of your rapt audience away from what you are in fact doing.

‘If I asked you to select either Diamonds or Spades to hold onto, which one would it be?'

‘Diamonds’ replies Debbie.

‘Ah Diamonds, a girl’s best friend. A great choice if I may so though it would be interesting if we had the time to discuss what you have against Spades. Ok. In the suit of Diamonds what are the five highest ranking cards?’

‘Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10’.

‘Now pick two of those’

‘Ace and Jack’, replies Debbie.

‘Of the two you have selected, which one do you favour?’

‘Well the Ace is the highest so I guess that is the one I prefer’.

‘So if you give that one to me what is the card that you now hold in your hand?

‘The Jack of Diamonds’

‘Now let’s see what card I wrote down’

Drum roll. Unfold the piece of paper. Study it. Frown. And show your paper to the audience.

‘The Jack of Diamonds’.

Gasps from the audience. Wild spontaneous applause. The room erupts. The card discarded from the pack by Debbie McGee matches the card written down before we even knew that Debbie McGee would be doing the card selection.

And the moral of the tale, and this week’s useful business lesson, if you know where you are trying to go and what you are trying to achieve, you will get there, and take everyone with you, by making sure you ask the right questions along the way.

And if you still don’t get how this ‘trick’ works, re-read the story and try to work out what was happening as we got to the result we were looking for.

It is not black magic. It’s leadership. Or is that just black magic? Discuss.

Is it only me......but this is snow joke.

Apologies for the dreadful pun but we could not let this week go without reference to the snowy weather of the past few days.

And in passing let me say, is it not strange how all those previously making wide eyed wild claims about global warming have gone suddenly quiet? Where are the enviro-mentalists now, we wonder? As we have pointed out countless times before, it is just wonky weather. It happens. Live with it.

But back to my point.

It is annoying in the least when every time we get a few snowflakes in this country, someone, usually dressed in a matching Day Glo high viz vest, the wardrobe of choice for unctuous busy bodies in this country, advises that we should only travel if our journey is ‘absolutely necessary’.

Now when such announcements are made there will no doubt be quite a few shirkers, skivers and slackers (and for the avoidance of doubt I know no one fitting any or all of these descriptions) who will take this as an official recommendation for an extra duvet day. But at what point does a journey stop being absolutely necessary? I think we deserve some guidance on this point.

I think we should consider Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and while I am prepared to concede that journeys done for my self- fulfilment and other self actualisation needs, of which I do very few, might not be ‘absolutely necessary’ in the eyes of Mr Day Glo, anything to do with my basic biological and physiological needs such as shelter, heating, food and water, and earning the spondooliks to buy the same, must be considered an absolutely necessary trip. Would you not agree?

But what about my esteem and achievement needs? Are these absolutely necessary? My belongingness and love needs? My security and order needs? You see Mr Day Glo and his Health and Safety Gualeiter friends do not think about these kinds of things when they make such wild pronouncements on taking trips in the snow and ice.

Fortunately I do.

Last week we even had a senior policeman stressing that this time he really meant the advice about unnecessary journeys. Which does beg two questions.........did he not really mean it before every time he urged us to take an extra duvet day? And next time he issues said advice will he mean it this time? This is the kind of mess such warnings get us into.

It might only be me but I have a solution to help resolve this dilemma. Perhaps when such warnings are issued going forward the advice should be linked to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and instead of linking the warning to some vague reference to necessity we could get warnings like ‘police today advised drivers only to venture forth if they are seeking to satisfy their needs for belongingness and love’. Or in extreme weather only journeys linked to basic biological needs will be allowed. That way we will all know where we stand.

Do you get my drift on this one? And we are not talking snow drifts here.

Have a great week.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.

Like water off a duck's back

It is pleasing to note that there are people out there who don’t just add their opinion to and comment upon Cicero’s opinions, but who also take the time and trouble to help Cicero understand better the vernacular of the modern world. We are all indebted to Anonymous for defining the word ‘mojo’. And if you don’t what we are talking about, please see last week’s dose of wit and wisdom and the comments subsequently appended.

And as you will no doubt agree wholeheartedly, Cicero has lost none of his ‘uncanny personal power or influence’ as projected through these words.

And so to this week’s soupcon of wisdom and enlightenment.

Last week Cicero had to persuade a mightily important Head Honcho heading up a business offering services to other businesses that his newly carefully crafted marketing strategy could be likened to ‘throwing bread on the water for the ducks’.

To say he was puzzled was an understatement but after explanation he soon got and understood the analogy and this analogy will be relevant to many of you also marketing to other businesses.

For what happens when you throw bread on the water in front of ducks? They will take a nibble of some of your crusts. And the more bread you throw, the more likely you are to get the ducks to nibble. Sometimes marketing is just so simple.

For unlike marketing to consumers, it is mightily difficult with B2B services to stimulate demand. Customers are not going to buy more engines, machine tools or even accountancy services just because you have tried to market to them. No matter how good your marketing might be, and we know it will be very good, such decisions are not taken spontaneously or without deep and detailed consideration of all the options, suppliers and costs. We are talking here about major purchase and investment decisions.

In market places like these therefore the role of the marketer is to keep the spotlight on the name and the proposition through as many channels as possible so that when the buy decision gets made, your brand remains top of mind. It is just like feeding ducks.

And to make this happen great marketers will use every means at their disposal to communicate with the market through as many broadcast and narrowcast media as possible-ads of course, but also things like PR releases, surveys, events, thought pieces, seminars, direct marketing, tweets and so on. The list is endless. And the challenge is on to find interesting ways to keep your name in lights and to keep renting space in the mind of your target and potential customers. Even Christmas Cards, ooooops sorry, Season’s Greetings Cards, we must not offend the Politically Correct Brigade, and diaries emblazoned with the brand, get sucked into this battle and at this time of the year get drafted in as bread for ducks. And you thought it was because someone wanted to be nice to you. Foolish and naive child.

Take a look at service firms’ websites. You will see them loaded with blogs, newsletters, press releases, events and sign up opportunities. And every one of these pieces of communication is designed to get their name into the market place and in front of customers and to keep it there. They are always finding reasons to communicate, something to say, opinions to be expressed. In short they are constantly throwing bread on the water. And this is what lies at the heart of a great Quack Quack Marketing Strategy-it is all about finding things to talk about with your market.

And hopefully you get it now........just like Cicero’s Head Honcho.

You may think that the things you read here a wee bit bonkers. This time the idea really is quackers. Quack, quack.

Is it only me........but I’m not so sure that this really is good news.

While reading widely the other day to ensure my knowledge and wisdom were being kept up to date, I came across an announcement from the latest and newest government Quango, the independent Office for Budget Responsibility, and was struck dumb.

It seems that this Quango now expects 330,000 public sector Apparatchiks to lose their jobs over the next four years, far fewer than the 490,000 it forecast in its June report. This is no doubt good news to the 160,000 Apparatchiks who will be kept on at taxpayer expense. But what about the rest of us?

The OBR Quangocrats have said it had changed the Apparatchik job forecast because the government of the Two Caesars ‘ had put more emphasis on welfare cuts and less on departmental spending cuts since it made its earlier forecast.’

Now far be it for me, a humble marketing personage to query the role and capability of this economic Quango but I do not greet this announcement with vocal whoops of joy, a lot of high fiving and heaps of knuckle knocking. Is this really good news-fewer Apparatchiks than previously thought to be culled?

But surely the OBR is looking at the issue through the wrong end of the telescope. And given that the key word in the title of the OBR is ‘responsibility, might I respectfully suggest that the Head OBR Quangocrat listen up and pay attention before he, or she, becomes the Head of the Office of Budget Irresponsibility.

The real issue is not that fewer Apparatchiks than previously thought might need to learn to SatNav to their local Job Centre Plus but how many we actually need or how many we, the hard pressed tax payers, are willing to pay for. And this is what I would like the OBR to examine if it wants to retain its moniker.

In short at the end of the day whether it be 330,000 or 490,000 fewer, we are just circumcising gnats. Tough on those involved but no tougher than the circumstances being faced by those in the wealth creating sector for a good while now. And given the size of the Apparatchik sector, this level of circumcision should be accomplished relatively pain free and should be well within natural levels of people turnover.

Hopefully one or even both of the Two Caesars is reading and sharing my thinking. Just trying to be helpful as usual.

What do you think?

Have a great week.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.