One small step for man

It is good to see you again and I hope you are well.

I have received an objection to my use of the word ‘dribble’ when referring to these fine and intelligent words. It has been pointed out that this conjures up images of old senile people. I do apologise. It is clearly not my intention to conjure up such a powerful connotation. In my defence I would point out that Cicero is an old man as the profile in the column on the right will testify. At the last count Cicero was over 2000 years old. I hope you look this good when you are my age. I may be old but I hope you don’t think I am yet senile. That was of course a rhetorical question.

And moving swiftly on.

You will know that this month is the 40th anniversary of Neil Armstrong’s wee trip to the moon when he and his mate, Buzz, went for a stroll across the Sea of Tranquillity. And so this week I look to space for my inspiration for my dribble. Sorry, it just slipped out.

Having worked across a few marketing businesses, large and small, and not yet been found out, it never ceases to amaze me how frequently marketing people complain that their budgets are never big enough. Do you know what? Your budget will never be enough so get on with it. And this is especially so in these recessionary times.

In the 1960s when man was first thinking about going to the moon, they quickly realised that their pens would not work in space. The Americans brought the finest minds to the work on the problem and threw money at the challenge and after millions of pound of technological investment came up with the finest pen that would work in space. It was a technological marvel. An engineering tour de force. The Russians took a pencil.

This is a very powerful demonstration that it is possible to have too much money and resource which can breed lazy thinking and stifle intellectual creativity.

Have you seen Apollo 13? A great film. And a masterclass in problem solving that every aspiring business man and marketing professional should watch. No amount of money was going to get these guys back to earth. It was all down to their collective brain power and creative thinking. It was only the repeated ability of the team to think creatively and differently that meant the mission was, in Tom Hank’s words, ‘a successful failure’.

So the next time you think you or your business aren’t investing enough in marketing, try to think beyond the norm to find new and different ways to reach and engage with your customers.

Once Cicero was developing a campaign to businesses and wanted to make sure all businesses in a specific area got the message. This had to be done at low cost. TV was certainly out. Press maybe but this would not guarantee that all businesses would get the message and it still was expensive. Direct mail too was not going to be cheap. There was only way to make sure every business got he message at low cost. The solution was to ask the VAT people to enclose some information with their correspondence to businesses. Result. All businesses reached at low cost and website traffic increased.

Similarly the people who brought you Innocent smoothies did not have in the early days big research budgets. Their solution was to have big bins at festivals and the like and customers were asked to give feedback by putting their empties in the appropriate bin. Result. Instant low cost customer feedback and the start of a legend.

And I even know of one company who unable to afford TV or press to advertise their wares pays for students to talk about their brand on tubes and trains and buses in London. They get great reach for the price of a few pints of beer. Brilliant.

Marketing people are supposed to be creative. It is what you got the job in the first place. Try to think your way through and around the problem. Put yourself in the shoes of Tom Hanks and Ed Harris. You know you can do it. The obvious solution is not always the best and is bound to be the most expensive. If you put your mind to it better and more cost effective solutions can be found. And I know that when you crack it, it will be one giant leap for you, your business and for your customers.

Is it only me?

Now I am not naturally a patient man. I am the kind of person who will press lift buttons two or even three times. I am the man who will press the button on the crossings when it is clear to even those with sight impairments that a previous pedestrian has pressed the button and am clearly being told to wait. Why do we do this? Do we really think that the lift is going to come or the lights change any quicker? However has anyone else noticed how long it takes to get a cup of coffee?

When you buy a coffee on the High St these days there is much pushing and pulling of levers and gushing of steam and wiping of dispensers before a small droplet of hot caffeine emerges into your polystyrene cup. It takes ages. And when I am looking for my fix, I want my caffeine hit now. I don’t wait to wait.

And it is not even as if there is any direct correlation between the length of time it takes for the dribble of caffeine to emerge and the quality of the end product. Why it is not possible as in ye olden days for Café Costabucks to have a jug of filter coffee on the go to help speed up the process? I am sure that it is not only me who thinks that all the technological apparatus now employed to make a cup of coffee, the fancy name given to those artisans who dispense our coffee into our polystyrene disposable cup and the length of time it takes, are all designed to convince us that the quality of the end product must be good. It is called marketing.

Have a great week.

Sit felix. Et sit fortunatus.