GI Joe

Is it only me...but are we a nation of men or mice?

No doubt like you would have been appalled by the story of one of Uncle Sam’s finest who ran amok with his gun in the badlands of Afghanistan killing 16 innocent Afghan women and children. Their only crime, I think, though in that country you can never be too sure, was to be Afghan and in the wrong place at the wrong time just as GI Joe was letting rip with his Tommy Gun.

While not making any excuses, I suppose that these things happen in time of war, and no matter how well trained our fighting folk might be, war can do strange things to even the most resilient man or woman wearing a uniform and carrying a gun when most of us just carry a briefcase or Radley.

But you should be equally appalled that Uncle Sam refused to hand over GI Joe to the Afghans and to allow the Afghan courts to try him for this heinous crime. There is no excuse for this. Can you just imagine what would have happened if some Afghan or anyone else for that matter had even bruised someone carrying a US passport? Do you think Mr Obama would allow a third party, i.e. a non US court, to try the perpetrators? No way, Jose.

There is also every chance that should a US citizen break as much as a nail while abroad, anyone within touching distance of the broken nail would not just be tried in the Land of the Free but first would be taken on a tour of third world prisons and experience the delights of water boarding.

Now compare the actions of Uncle Sam whisking an alleged mass murderer back home, with the cases of Chris Tappin and Richard O’Dwyer. These are two Brits alleged to have broken US law on relatively minor offences, who were recently frogmarched out of the country manacled and shackled by US law enforcement officers to face the might of the US legal system. Not one shred of evidence has been placed before a UK court. Not one UK law has been broken. Not one piece of information has been provided to show that the person might have committed the offence. For unlike us, the Yanks are not required to do this. They protect their citizens.

It might just be me but the balance of power here is all wrong and what is sauce for the goose must be sauce for the gander.

I know Mr Tony thought he was Dubya’s lackey and that is why such an inequitable and unbalanced law was drafted and accepted by our legislators but Bush and Blair are now footnotes in the history books. Now it’s time for us to decide if we are mice or men and for us to protect and look after our citizens as well as the Yanks look after theirs. It is time for us to leverage our Special Relationship with them, and what a trite phase that is, and for us to show that we are men not mice nor Mr Obama’s lackeys.

Send us back Tappin and O’Dywer until you can prove in our courts that they have done wrong. And it would be nice if GI Joe was sent back to be dealt with by the Afghans.

As someone else one said ‘we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal....’ Oh yes it was the framers of the American Declaration of Independence. I have checked but at no point did they claim that Yanks were more equal or superior and everyone else inferior with lesser rights.

It is time for those on the other side of the Pond to remember that.

Have a great week.

And if you want even more intellectual stimulation to get you through the week check out www.themarketingcomic.blogpost.com and learn the importance of adding emotion to your customer experience. You won't want to miss it. You know you can trust Cicero.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.

Oh what a lovely war!

It is not often that you will find something helpful and useful coming out of our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is even rarer for there to be lessons for marketing emerging from these conflicts. But as a regular Cicero Speaks devotee it will come as no surprise to you to learn that I can find enlightenment in unusual places and I have found a very important nugget of marketing learning from these brutal wars.

Last week I was telling you about the words of wisdom of my northern agent in the Dales. And this week I want to share with you some words of marketing insight from a real and genuine 5 star American general. I truly do scour the world to bring you learning and enlightenment.

I was reading recently an interview with General David Petraus, the American general who until recently was the main man in Iraq and who has just become head humvee honcho in Afghanistan. In his interview he said,

‘You cannot build awareness or engagement through a bullet proof windscreen’.

Now you may be struggling to see the immediate relevance of this to marketing so let me explain.

As senior marketers we will often build awareness or engagement through a bulletproof windscreen. Only we call it market research. Do we do enough to get out from behind our bullet proof windscreen to find out what is going on, to discover what our customers think about us, to experience what they are experiencing? Could we do more? Or are we content to let the shag pile grow beneath our feet and rely on intelligence from our research reports? And lean on the columns of excel worksheets from our front line staff for understanding and insight?

A few months back I was on one of my regular missions on behalf of us all to improve and upgrade the quality of customer service that some large faceless organisation was offering me and the rest of its customers. Getting nowhere with the customer service team I asked to speak to their Head of Customer Service to be told ‘I am sorry but he does not speak to customers’. Are you as amazed and as dumfounded at that statement as I was? This is an organisation where I was assured that ‘your call is very important to us’ and ‘customer service is our number one priority’. Yeah, right. But it is also an organisation where its senior management do not think it important enough to speak with customers. Guys, listen to General Petraus.

Since this experience I now make a point of asking to speak with the Customer Service Director or the Marketing Director if and when I have an issue that is irresolvable by the front line staff. It is a good game to play and you should try it. It is saddening to see how few organisations will allow you to speak to those supposedly leading the charge to make their organisation customer-centric

Now I don’t want to hold myself up some sort of paragon of marketing virtue, assuming of course that you can juxtaposition ‘marketing’ and ‘virtue’, but I did always try to get out from behind my bullet proof windscreen and would encourage my team to do the same. I was always happy to speak with customers if they phoned. And indeed was always keen to contact a sample of customers whose business we had lost to find out why we were not at least as good as the competition.

I would always ensure that my team and myself had shopped the customer shop and experienced the customer experience. As they say (no idea who ‘they’ is in this instance) ‘if you want to improve airline food, serve it up in the airline’s board room’.

So if you work in marketing or have a responsibility for customers in your organisation, so that means all of you, I want you now to commit to build awareness and engagement without a bullet proof windscreen. I would love you to personally commit and to encourage your team to commit, to the Petraus Marketing Doctrine:
· To speak with customers if they ask to speak with you
· To speak with a sample of new, existing or ex customers every month to find out how they feel about your business and how it could be made better
· To regularly shop the customer shop

By doing this you will be sending out a very powerful signal to your customers and equally importantly to your front line staff, exactly what kind of an organisation you want to be. And you will be amazed at what you will learn and uncover.

So do it now. Not next week. Not tomorrow. Not when you have a space in your diary. Do it now and get on with it. And maybe some good will have come out of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Is it me? I recently had to visit one of the NHS’s finest establishments. Please don’t worry there is no need for you to rush over with the grapes and flowers. I was there in a professional capacity rather than because of ill health. While there I went for a coffee and cake. I was staggered to see they had 2 price lists and they actually advertised that visitors (in other words taxpayers like you and me) ‘would have a 25% surcharge added to their bills’. Shocked and appalled is not the word, and yes I know that’s two words.

Why? Even if we accept the premise that staff should get a discount, to flaunt that and to brazenly advertise that everyone else should be surcharged, is symptomatic of the public sector’s attitude that if you don’t work there, the rest of us are cash cows. Needless to say I refused on principle to be surcharged for my coffee and left, having made my point and having drawn parallels with the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution. Extreme I know but relevant. Is it just me who thinks like this? Your thoughts please.

Have a great week.

Sit felix et sit fortunatus.