My old friend Gary used to tell little parables in business situations to help resolve situations.  Here are some and some more:

Consider the Two Kinds of People

It is often said that there are two kinds of people in the world.

James Thurber, for example, said there are two kinds of people in the world, those that divide people into two groups and the others.

I like saying there are three kinds of people in the world.  Those who can count and those who can’t.

Consider the Purchase of Bread

You can tell everything about a person by the way they buy bread.  Nearly everyone has some older bread at home when they buy new bread.

When you buy the new bread, do you immediately eat the new loaf – or do you finish the old loaf first.  That’s the difference between the grasshoppers and the ants.

The grasshoppers eat the new bread because it is fresh and delicious – at the maximum level of flavour and taste.  They want to enjoy it at its best.

The ants are more concerned with the availability of the bread than the flavour and they will finish the older bread first.  They are willing to give up a little to get more.

Consider the Kind of People You Work With

It is at the entry of an old medieval town.  There is a blind beggar sitting there as people go about their business.  A man enters through the gate and walks up to the beggar.

“Hello.  Can you help me?  I am moving to this town.  What kind of people live here?” he asks.

“Let me answer your question with a question.  What are the people like in your town?” says the beggar.

“Well,” says the man, “that’s the problem.  The people are all very nice, trustworthy and helpful.  They are pleasant and courteous and always willing to lend a hand.  We are going to miss them.”

“Ahh,” says the beggar, “I have some good news for you.  You will find the people in this town are very much the same.

The next day, at the same place the same beggar sits.  A man enters through the gate and walks up to the beggar.

“Hello.  Can you help me?  II am moving to this town.  What kind of people live here?” he asks.

“Let me answer your question with a question.  What are the people like in your town?” says the beggar.

“Well,” says the man, “I am going to be happy to be rid of them.  Those people are never very nice or helpful.  They never have a good word to say and are always looking for favours.  You can’t trust any of them.”

“Ahh,” says the beggar, “then I have some very bad news for you.”

Consider Eating Bacon and Eggs

When you eat bacon and eggs for breakfast, the chicken is involved.  And, it can walk away afterwards.

The pig on the other hand is committed. It has no remaining options.

It is like that with many projects, people are either involved or committed.

The whole game in business is to turn your people into pigs.  Get them committed to a project or idea.

If they are only chickens, they can walk away at any time and leave you in the lurch.

Consider the Reasons to Support Your Argument

Another visit to the old walled town.  The Bishop arrives by train one morning for his first visit to the town.  He is greeted by the local Priest and the Mayor who express gratitude for the visit.

The Bishop is taken to the town square where all the townspeople are.  Speeches are made and the children, all up, put on a historical pageant.

The Bishop is then taken to the town hall where there is a fine and ample lunch prepared by the people of the town.

Following the lunch there is a full church service for the Bishop where all the citizens show up in their finery.  The service is followed by a banquet and a concert with singers and dancers from the town.

As the local Priest takes the Bishop back to train for his return to his home, he asks the Bishop how he enjoyed his day.

The Bishop is effusive in his compliments for the food, service, pageantry and everything.  “But,” he says, “I have one question. Usually when I visit a town for the first time, they ring the bells in the church.  Why didn’t you do so?”

“I knew you would ask that,” said the local Priest unfurling a long sheet of numbered responses.  “I have a list of 37 reasons why we did not.”  And he rapidly begins to rattle them off:  “First, we have no bells.  Second, we were unsure of the most appropriate tune.  Third, we were….”

“Wait!” said the Bishop.  “What did you say the first reason was?”

“We… have no bells.” stuttered the local Priest.

“That’s good enough.” replied the Bishop.  “One good reason is worth more than the other 36.”

(One good answer can win the “No Bell” Prize).

Nearly every civilization has origin myths that explain how they started.  Athens, Sparta and Rome had them and we learned them in school.

Nearly every native population has an explanation for how they came to be and why they are where they are.  It gives everyone a shared consciousness and a shared set of values to build from since they can all look to their origins for guidance for the future. Continue reading ‘Origin Myths Set The Trajectory’ »

Whatever happened to the old days when everything was “Plug and Play?”  You got some new technology; you plugged it in and started using it.

If anyone has gone through a computer meltdown, and I recently did, you will realize how fragile and interconnected everything is now.  Nothing is plug-and-play anymore.  It is more like plug-and-pray. Continue reading ‘Plug and Pray – A Personal Exodus to the Forbidden Country of NO COMPUTER; NO PHONE!’ »

Which commercials do you believe?  Too few!

Many commercials are produced these days with little thought of suggesting their message is actually believable. Continue reading ‘Commercials That We Don’t Believe’ »

The People’s Choice awards was well on its way when they declared a pizza break and a team of well labelled DiGiorno pizza servers came marching out with pizza.  And then there were the celebrities who were taking photos with their Kodak cameras – loudly labelled at that.

It got me wondering where the line between editorial and commercial got that blurred.

Product placement has been with us for a long time, famously when ET preferred Reese’s Pieces.  Product placement appearances, though, have not always been so blatant or heavy handled.

Is it that the advertisers have more power or have the producers of programming become overwhelmed?

Flimsy programing, like game shows, that have little editorial content and are designed to be extended commercials, have long integrated commercial mentions with content.  When Monty Hall revealed the brand new car his contestant won, it came with a list of advertiser defined features.

But when the CSI Miami crew make pointed use of Hummers, an incongruous placement of $100,000 vehicles for a police force, we sort of accept it.  How many police forces would allocate that kind of money for a status vehicle?

But is The People’s Choice award show any more than a prime time version of a game show?  Isn’t it just a promotional vehicle?

Like the OSCARS, or any “award” show, the show is designed to promote the entertainment industry.  It doesn’t have any real editorial content.  So cheesy (pun intended) product placement is nothing to be concerned about.

What is interesting is that few people see award shows as promotional vehicles.  They are considered newsworthy content and reported on the News shows.  The News shows are also part of the entertainment industry and have a vested interest in promoting the awards shows.

That’s why half of the news is not journalistic but promotional.  Public relations folks do their jobs really well.  And the news folks don’t seem to mind or notice.  When the sports guy tells us about the game to come, he is promoting it, not providing news.  And what TV news cast doesn’t have their celebrity report or talk about the shows on their own network?  News stories about Jay Leno’s show are not exactly incisive journalism.

Or, when the football post-game show features a presentation from our old pal Jared from Subway of a new sandwich feature to the coach/expert panel.  What does that have to do with football?

Perhaps this intrusion, or crossing the line, reflects a need from both broadcasters and advertisers.  Broadcasting is suffering from fragmentation.  Each channel is losing viewers to more and more channels that are proliferating on cable.  Each channel is also losing viewers to internet downloads such as Hulu, the networks themselves or file sharing.

Advertisers are losing eyeballs on their commercials to internet viewing, TIVO/PVRs, downloads, channel surfing and plain old lousy commercials that are uninspired and tedious.  So how do you intrude and get viewers to notice you if they are fast forwarding through your commercial on their PVR?

With one move.  Broadcasters add revenue by selling in show features and integrate the advertiser into the program for all future downloads.  Advertisers have always been keen on doing this and are happy to buy.  It even adds a small factor of endorsement at times that advertisers also like.

The downside for viewers is full time infomercials which will test viewers desire to watch particularly such commercialized promotional vehicles such as award shows.

What I would love to see is a show, let me call it “Awards of Awards,” where celebrities give out awards for: the best award show, the best award show presentations, the best staging, the best award show blooper, best fashion statement at an awards show and, maybe, even the best product placement.

How many times have people haggled over the price of something?  It is a regular occurrence.  But few are the times when people understand the real value of a thing or service.

In the creative business of advertising it is an on-going problem: It takes an instant sometimes to come up with a brilliant idea that is worth thousands to our clients.  Sometimes it takes a long, hard week to come up with an idea for a small space ad.

So how do we price our work? Is the value creating idea worth more than the small space ad?

There has been a convention to charge on a per hour basis.  But is that fair?

We can quantify hours.  We can calculate hourly rates relating to income, overhead and profit expectations and factor in out-of-pocket reimbursements.  So setting hourly rates is a well worn path to a model for charging.

But really is it relevant?  It is like saying a truck can go faster than a motorcycle because it has more wheels.  Quantitative difference, sure.  But spurious.

So we can price our hourly services.  But do we know the value?

Is it right that creative service companies should receive a share of the reward when an idea’s resonance creates significant profit for our clients?

It seems we know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

But advertising companies are not alone.  Many of clients suffer from this same blindness.

Marketing communications companies are constantly being asked for help on small projects where “we don’t really have a budget” and “it is just a one time ad.”   Agencies comply to help out seeing there is no big benefit for the client.  But does the same client open their purse and say “We’ll pay extra for this because it is really important to us.”

The quality of something can be effected by the amount of time put into it.  Not on everything, but on most things.  And the value of knowledge is vastly underestimated.

I like to tell the story of the giant machine that worked flawlessly and old Bob who operated it.  Whirrr- whirr it went without a problem.  Old Bob retired and things went well for a while.  Then all of a sudden the giant machine started going whump-whump, whump-whump.  They called in engineers; they called in consultants.  No one seemed to have the answer.  Finally someone pointed out that the machine always worked when old Bob was running it.  “Let’s call in old Bob!”

Old Bob came it and was given a brief.  “Hmmm,” he said.  “I will need a piece of chalk and a sledge hammer.”  They got them for him.  “Turn on the machine,” he said.  Sure enough it started going whump-whump, whump-whump.  “Turn off the machine,” said old Bob.

He walked along the side of the machine, thought for a moment and finally took the chalk and put a big X on the side of the machine.  Then he picked up the sledge hammer and gave the machine a huge whack right on the X. “Turn on the machine,” said old Bob.

Whirrr- whirr went the machine as if nothing was wrong.  Everyone was jubilant.  The company president said, “Thank you, Bob.  What do we owe you?”

Old Bob thought for a moment and said “$10,003.”

“That’s a curious amount,” said the President.  “How do you get to that amount?”

“Well,” said old Bob, “I figure it is $3 for the labour – drawing the X and hitting it with the hammer.  And $10,000 for knowing where to put the X.”  So the price reflects a few minutes of work and a lifetime of learning to gain the right knowledge.  Not just a few minutes of work.

Clients have asked how we can create a commercial quickly, and I have replied that after the first few hundred, it is easy.  A few minutes of work, perhaps, and a lifetime of learning.

Nevertheless, the appreciation of quality is getting harder and harder to come by.  Computers make it easy to simulate advertising.  But appearing to be advertising isn’t real advertising.

We have all heard people mock modern art with “My kid could paint that!”  I always say, “If your kid is that good, get her into art school!  You will make a fortune.”  The mocking comment usually reflects more about the ability of the mocker to appreciate what they are looking at.

What is the value of quality in the communication arts?  Effectiveness.  Results.

The guy who says that advertising doesn’t work after doing it poorly means he doesn’t know how to do advertising.   Advertising always works if you put the right knowledge resources against it.

Coming up with the right message is the most difficult and important investment you can make in advertising.  Simulating it isn’t the answer.  Paying for the folks who have a lifetime of learning is worth it.

I don’t think I have seen a better barometer of service declines than Aeroplan. Or of how something can start as one thing and, with logical decisions along the way, completely lose its vision to become the opposite.

I was a Director of the advertising agency that launched the Aeroplan program and so was one of the earliest to enroll back in the 1980s. It was a ground breaking idea and all the airlines were looking to reward their frequent flyers and create loyalty with free flights after considerable use.

But the Aeroplan program has moved from being a promotional incentive for Air Canada to being a free standing enterprise.

When it was a promotional incentive, the organization was oriented to serving and motivating customers. Getting you to earn and redeem your points as quickly as possible was its vision. Its purpose was to drive business for Air Canada. It did its job well.

But people did not use up their points quickly and created a huge liability of points that would have to be redeemed. After a time the airline industry, including Air Canada, hit the skids. For Air Canada, that eventually meant heading into bankruptcy.

Aeroplan prospered. Because at the end of the day, Aeroplan points (like other collector points) became a limited access and use currency = call it “near-cash.” Other retailers, including banks, saw Aeroplan as a way to stimulate their sales.

Imagine a credit card that gives its user “near cash” rebates for use. Visa could. And did with a highly successful credit card.

At first it was travel oriented products and services that aligned with Aeroplan. They could provide added value to their customers in a highly motivating manner. Frequent travellers could earn Aeroplan points from car rentals, hotels, airport parking. The ‘near-cash” market burgeoned.

And it wasn’t just Aeroplan. Other airlines and retailers played in this game with their own near-cash points.

Now redemption expanded to include all manner of catalogue items and cash cards for participating retailers. For the business traveller, it was payback time. Your company sends you all around the globe on business and you get after tax TV sets, vacation trips, whatever you want. It was incremental bonus compensation.

As Air Canada faltered, Aeroplan was spun off to be a separate promotional enterprise.  It fed funds into the failing airline.  It still had Air Canada as a major client, but there was so much more to it.

It was now a stand alone near-cash currency. But its operating vision seems to have changed, despite assurances to collectors of the points.

Now it is a guardian at the vault of earned points, fending off use and leeching away as much of the accrued liability as possible. Why, because it now has to pay for the goods and service that get redeemed. And the more points and cash it can get from its captive market, the more profitable its operations are.

So instead of wanting and facilitating redemption, the more slippage it can create the better. No more free flights. No more ready availability of flights for heavy users.

In fact, I just booked a free flight. It only cost me $120 in various fees and levies. So the program moved from free to discounted.

And booking a flight is restricted as well. You might get a flight for a certain number of points, but it will cost a whole lot more points if there are a few layovers along the way. I once tried to book a direct flight from Toronto to Vancouver and there was nothing less than two stop overs (adding four to five hours to my trip) for points. A travel agent I know once told me that people who have overseas vacation plans try to book a year in advance to be able to get seats.

Another way Aeroplan has reduced its liability is to confiscate points. A co-worker had her Aeroplan points confiscated due to one year of inactivity. The points were not taken away, she was offered an opportunity to buy them back. Let’s just say her response started with an “F.”

Aeroplan also charges fees for transfer of points. If you inherit points from someone passing away, or your spouse wants to give you their points. Expect to pay a few hundred dollars.

And Aeroplan bookings are much more inflexible than other travel arrangements. When booking a recent flight, I was prompted to also rent a car. I inadvertently made a mistake by agreeing to a date that was a default setting and not the date I wanted.

Despite immediately calling Aeroplan’s 1-800 number (my call was important to them, please hold), I was told I could request cancellation, but there were no guarantees, and the process would take at least ten days. Tough luck because I was flying within a couple days. Another snagging of points.

To make matters worse, they told me to call the car rental agency. Who immediately told me to…. you guessed it, call Aeroplan since it was their booking.

At the end of this, Air Canada was able to sell off Aeroplan for needed cash. And the new operators have to pay back their purchase. Fair enough.

But they are doing it at the expense of Air Canada’s already beleaguered customers. Crappy service at the Aeroplan side reflects on Air Canada as loudly as crappy service on the airline. And did I mention that my flight arrived on time, but it did take Air Canada an hour more to off load the luggage.

My colleague vows to avoid Air Canada at all cost since her points were “ripped off” from her. Now this volume growing technique has evolved into one that reduces volume.

Aeroplan has turned from promoting Air Canada to pissing off people making them avoid Air Canada. Quite a turnaround.

Anyone in the car business or the advertising business who knows me has probably heard me say that retail car advertising sucks.

Let’s face it, for the past thirty years or so not much has changed in how dealers advertise cars. What puzzles me however, is that dealers continue to follow the status quo despite a never-ending glut of sob stories about declining sales.

If you had millions of dollars invested in a car dealership and your sales just kept falling short each year wouldn’t you try and make changes to correct the slide? Not that responsible dealers don’t make changes, I know they do. But, the one thing they never seem to change significantly is their marketing. To get change you have to make change and it’s usually uncomfortable.

I’ve always said I’d be rich if I could come up with a totally new, dramatically changed and effective way to advertise cars. I’ve been searching for this answer my entire thirty-year career in the car marketing industry. From ad agency to ad agency where I’ve worked on car accounts, the retail car ads never change. It’s always a “Clearance Sale” or a “Red Tag” sale or “the best time to buy.” That’s not to say my colleagues and I haven’t come up with some brilliant ideas. We have. It’s our clients, the car dealers and industry executives who have been afraid to make a change. In some cases, overly cautious ad agency execs scuttle the great ideas just because they’re “not what the industry is used to.”

Nobody seems to listen to the consumer. Hey, I’m not a research expert but I’ve read my share of interesting research data and the one thing it tells us is that consumers are not saps. Clearance sales, Red Tag Days and March Madness events don’t fool them. Let’s be honest, there is no lowest price or best time to buy a car. You don’t get a discount even when the ad says you get a discount.

What I’ve learned over the years is that there isn’t going to be a Eureka moment for retail car ads – at least not within the realm of current marketing knowledge, although understanding and using social media has potential. But, there can be a glorious awakening to the techniques and tools that, when used knowledgeably, can influence people to go to your dealership.

All it takes is an understanding of the way consumers’ minds perceive advertising messages. That amazingly sophisticated organ we all have, our brain, is the key. Once you board the mystery train to understanding how the brain works the rest is as incredibly simple as selecting the right tool for the job.

But, caution first. There aren’t many car industry people out there who want badly enough to make it happen. No dealer I’ve ever met, save a couple, has ever demonstrated that they are willing to come up with the investment and the time commitment to see a difference. Time is essential to building the branding that will bring customers through your doors for their lifetime.

There is a massive sub-industry made up of companies and people whose very existence depends on the retail car industry and its resistance to change.   Jingle houses sell “out-of-the-box” jingles to car dealers throughout North America. Jingles that curiously come “oout of the box.”

Newspapers employ scores of people who do nothing but assemble clip art car ads that look like bingo cards.

There are freelance advertising consultants, web masters, nephews and brothers of dealers, radio reps, the wife, and even some customers, all telling the retail car industry how to promote and advertise. Dealers listen to all of them except the most important one – the Consumer.

Take it from me – I might be a marketing communications guy, but I am a customer too.  And I am in touch with my customer side.

Take a look at Google.com , then Facebook, then flavour of the month Twitter.com. Are these sites attractive? Why are they so successful? – they’re useful.

Sure, it helps if people can actually read your information and navigate your site. But if you’re a small local business do yourself a favour next time you start working on your website – don’t do any work on the design unless it’s got a serious problem. If you’ve got to mess with the design don’t waste time, try black on white text with little tasteful graphics . Then use the rest of your budget to do changes to get customers in contact with you

How do most new visitors see your site? Do they see the fantastic new facade you blew half your budget on? No, they see you like this:

How most websites are seen

That’s right, the first place they see you is as a short snippet in a search results page or a link a friend sent them. Nothing about your attractive design gets them there.

They don’t even see the site when they make their decision to go to it. You can’t edit what the friend says with the link, but you can change what the snippet in the search results show.

Search engines try to give local results to searchers. No two users are going to get the same search results. If the search engine has definitive address data and local sites referring to your site, it will boost your rank locally. If you’re B2C this is critical. The search results pages replaced the yellow pages some time ago for most people.

With phones used for GPS and geo-targetting being used to serve up search results, it’s critical you show up in local searches.

It is also critical that what people see of you in those tiny search summaries grabs them more than the sites above and below you.

Here are some great ways to improve your sites “look” and local appeal:

• Make sure you own your Google Maps entry – it’s EASY do it here: Google Local
• Make your store locator / map on your site easy to get to.
• Even better – add the address and phone to the bottom of every single page and link it to your newfound Google Maps entry
• Check your snippets for search results and fix them either by editing your site or sitemap or webmaster tools
• Make a Facebook fan group even if your product isn’t that fun or sexy. Make it just to make sure someone else doesn’t do it for you later.
• If you have the time, search for yourself or your products and see what you find. A few posts to the right places may drive tons of interested customers your way.
• If you’re going to go for a full-on redesign make sure you don’t lose the pagerank you already have, use 301 redirects on the old pages

Along Bayview Avenue, just north of where I live in Toronto, there are a string of establishments, one next to another, next to another.  It goes along for a kilometer or so on one side of the street.

It starts with the Zoroastrian Temple on a little hill.  There is a Buddhist Temple, various flavours of Christian churches, a Mosque, a Synagogue.  They are all pretty much next door to each other, one after another.  My son and I call it the God Mall.

True, it is like a strip mall along the street where one can shop one’s soul.

They are neighbours in many ways.

I have this hopeful fantasy in my mind – “Hi Moishe, Arshad here.  Say we are having a very big Ramadan celebration coming along, can we use your parking lot for the overflow?”

“Oh, sure, no problem, boobala.   If you wouldn’t mind letting us use your lot for the Yom Kippur extra parking.”

While the institutionalizing of religion has caused a lot of conflict and death over the centuries, I would like to believe that we have matured as a species and can now peacefully respect our neighbours and their beliefs as they respect ours.

We can wish our neighbours a Jolly Diwali, a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah, or Eid Mubarak or Gung Hay Fat Choi.  And mean it.

If you give a little to the other guy, you win big.  Cooperation brings respect.

But to me the true lesson is one of hope.  If all these people can cooperate as neighbours on one street in Toronto, why not in the rest of the world.

And that’s our message for the end of the year.  I wish you all the best for 2010.