Marketing in Real Life

“If you can feel what I feel than it’s a musical masterpiece" – MCA (Adam Yauch) on “Pass the Mic”   When Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys died a few weeks ago it hit me hard, harder than I would have expected.  So I have been thinking a lot about why, and what it really boils down to is that the Beastie Boys helped define my musical taste and my personality in way that was encapsulated by the album “Check Your Head,” one of my four or five favorite albums of all time.  Check Your Head was a distinct evolution from earlier pieces that were very sampling/party anthem based and stuck almost exclusive within the hip hop genre.  With Check Your Head the Beastie Boys stretched themselves.  They did something almost unheard of at the time by playing their own instruments and winding through a bunch of genres to create an album that showed off their own diverse interests and helped create mine – hard hitting rock, jazz/funk, and more all weaved together with...

As someone who talks and writes and thinks about social media a lot nothing makes my blood boil quite like people saying that Facebook doesn't work for B2Bs. I know people talk about Linkedin being better but I really haven't seen it myself (send me any successes if you have them - I'm willing to be convinced). The thing is that social media is blurring the lines between personal and professional and people buy from people regardless of the industry. So unless your are selling on price alone you can use Facebook to showcas your expertise, capture leads, and give people a sense of what it's like to business with you. Sure, lots of B2Bs struggle with Facebook, but that is because they aren't doing it well. And that's user error, not platform failure.

I have two year old son, so I hear about Elmo a lot.  And I just watched the wonderful documentary about Kevin Clash , the man behind the muppet, in which they talk about how Elmo relates to kids by doing one simple thing: loving them.   Elmo and his puppeteer show an incredible sense of compassion and understanding for the people they are trying to reach with a consistent goal of creating joy.  And the honesty with which they speak and listen to their audience is something all marketers can learn from.  As brands we are often so caught up in trying to sell something or manufacture an emotion that we lose the true humanness that all of us possess.   Knowing that people buy from people, as brands we should all act a little more like Elmo and speak with the honesty, pure emotion, and humanity that connect us to each other and the shared experiences we create. 

Patriot’s Day has traditionally been about honoring the revolutionaries who helped the United States come into existence, and for many people it still is.   But as someone who was raised in Boston it means more than that to me.   Patriot’s Day (or Marathon Monday as many Bostonians refer to it) reminds us all that if you believe in something and are willing to take chances you can make a difference.   That there is pride in being a local and participating in local traditions (i.e., pushing yourself to the limit or bbq'ing and drinking beer while other people run). And that challenging authority is not only a right but a responsibility if you want to make a difference.   In short, while I’ve never fought in a war, Patriot’s Day always reminds me that there is often a better way if you’re willing to fight for it, what does it mean to you?

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I am a believer in good old fashioned market research and testing. But I am also fan of moving (and winning or failing) fast. Often times we as marketers let the perfect be the enemy of the good when it comes to testing. There is unquestionably a place for scientific rigor but how do we get the list of things that make it to that stage. To me, it's simply putting things in market and seeing what happens, even if the results are only directional. Because directional is certainly better than directionless.