Any ad that gets people talking (or emailing or Tweeting) is a home run, especially if the ad’s vibe is overwhelmingly positive.  Case in point?   The mesmerizing Interstate Batteries commercial now running on TV -- you know, the one showing an old, grime-covered car deep in the woods, its ancient AM radio gamely playing on for lo these many years.   

As the camera dollies across the scene and then zooms slowly in to the brightly lit radio dial, an infectious big band tune reminiscent of Birth of the Blues plays out (we are led to believe) through the car's tinny speaker.  A battery and tagline appear on the screen: 

“No Battery Lasts Longer.  Introducing the new AGM.”

We are not told what AGM stands for, only that the battery lasts for a very long time.  No voice-over is spoken, nor does any need to be.  The quietly effective spot with only a dozen words of text tells a memorable story: that Interstate Batteries are “outrageously dependable.” 

"We’re always looking for ways to make our brand promise come to life in a meaningful way,” noted Tyler Reeves, Interstate’s director of marketing, strategy and innovation in a Media Daily story about the company’s television advertising just over a year ago.  Their latest spot seems to do just that because it’s being talked about.  If they keep launching creative this effective -- and with such a compelling benefits story, more people are sure to end up asking their auto repair retailer for Interstate batteries when the old one in their much newer car calls it a day.      

Finally, a great deal of speculation is afoot online about the make and year of the car in the TV spot.   After careful analysis, born of having owned and driven cars of this vintage, I was absolutely certain it was an early '50s Ford – most likely a ’51 because of the shape of the hood.  Alas, Interstate says it was a ’54 Ford Mainline they found in a junkyard.   I was close, but you know what they say about that!

Takeaway:  A strong key message needs strong creative to build awareness AND move the needle.

   

A so-called Minimum Wage by government edict should be abandoned in favor of a much more productive system of Performance Pay voluntarily put in place by employers -- for their own benefit, their customers' benefit, their employees' benefit and the country's benefit (since fewer low paid workers will need to be propped up with government assistance).  The truth is that paying people more – especially at the retail sales and service level  – does make sense.

A minimum wage job is good training for young people writes Brian Brenberg, assistant professor at The King’s College in a recent CNBC .com article.  (http://www.cnbc.com/id/101340105 )   It’s where student workers like those in his freshman economics class learn to show up on time, take instruction and follow rules, he says.  Some young employees I see in retail stores appear to enjoy their work, despite the perceived mundane nature of the job.  Others clearly would rather be almost anywhere else than taking my order or bagging my groceries. 

Of course, adult breadwinners also work retail jobs and often despair at getting stuck at the bottom while people at the top prosper.  However, two points seem seldom discussed: 

(1) People who own and manage business depend on their employees to help them make a profit.  A positive, productive team can be a source of competitive advantage – especially at the customer contact level;

(2) Nobody deserves an inflated minimum wage just for showing up, whether students or adults. 

They DO, however, deserve a wage that reflects performance and potential – if they’re worth hiring at all.  Some are worth $7.25, others $8.81, said to be the average WalMart wage, while President Obama has called for $10.10 in his State of the Union address (comparable to what Costco pays in the Washington, D.C. area).  Some employees even may be worth the $15.00 activists are demanding of WalMart. 

The argument is made by Professor Brenberg that businesses simply will leave open positions unfilled if they’re required to pay an appreciably higher minimum wage.  Unenlightened businesses likely will respond that way.  However, if they want to attract, value and retain high-performance employees, employers should be willing (eager!) to pay them a wage that reflects their true value -- a performance wage, without government intervention.   

Brenberg concludes his article by writing that, given a higher minimum wage, “it will be harder for students like mine to land that first job and acquire those skills that lead to upward mobility.”  That may be true if government forces the issue.  But consider this, professor:  Poor performing students in your classroom get Fs.  Top performers get As.   Most F students eventually weed themselves out, while most top performers continue being top performers.  Similarly, poor workers either weed themselves out or get stuck in the low wage trap.  Others will grab the brass ring and perform so well they could be earning $15 in short order.  And their employer will be glad to pay it. 

Perform more, get more.  It works on Wall Street, so why not on Main Street?

Takeaway:   The people who work for you are a potential source of competitive advantage.  Pay high performance people high performance pay.   And let them set the example for others.

I don’t get it.  What’s up with all the whining among national retailers about the “margin pressure” they experienced through the Christmas selling season – at least according to one analysis (http://www.cnbc.com/id/101323617)?   Like lemmings marching to the sea behind the Pied Piper, each chose to climb on the discount bandwagon with clear eyes and began their sales even earlier this season.  Not all of them, of course, as put forth in this article (http://www.today.com/money/its-wrap-holiday-retail-winners-losers-2D11874726 ).  Some of the wilier ones discounted selectively – or not at all, convinced that people would believe otherwise in a Black Friday, P.T. Barnum sort of way.  

I maintain that selling on price is lazy in most any business at most any time.  There are exceptions, of course: 

·         true commodities, where market forces drive the price (like fuel oil, aluminum or corn)
·         marketers trying to make share inroads against entrenched category leaders
·         stores located in off-price malls (although their prices are not always discounted)
·         and products that nobody has bothered to differentiate. 

Counter-intuitively, all too many retail businesses choose to sell at a discount when demand is high.  Some discount all the time (vs. virtually none of the time for your local Apple retail store).  These lazy retailers seem driven by no other reason than (a) “It’s always been done this way,” or (b) fear -- that unless they discount their goods their customers will go away, snapped up by the guy down the street with an even lower price.  It’s interesting to note that buyers often rate price toward the bottom in consumer surveys, citing the greater importance of salesperson knowledge, product quality, good selection, solid tech support, etc.   But once you’ve educated customers to expect that discount, you’ve got yourself stuck in a swamp – one that’s extraordinarily difficult to slog your way out of.   Just ask J. C. Penney (see what they have wrought for themselves here by deviating too quickly from their long-term "sale" formula: http://www.hfnmag.com/retail/j-c-penney-to-close-stores-lay-off-2000/ ). 

Many auto dealers provide a “price-first” case in point, where discounting is a baseline strategy -- if there’s not a sale happening now, wait ‘til next week!  Of course, new car retailers also have become victims of the Internet, where the “dealer cost” of their products is widely available, and that magnifies (but does not excuse) the problem.

These days, the buying public has come to expect that what little profit there is left in news cars (especially the domestics) should be given to them – along with free car washes, oil changes, etc.  Of course, car dealers largely have conditioned their customers to think this way by creating an adversarial relationship over a long period of time, so that most folks would rather have a tooth pulled than shop for a new car.  Plus, it’s so much easier to sell on price than to sell dealership advantages – the qualities that set that store apart from every other dealer and compel people to want to do business with them almost regardless of what kind of car they sell.   

Some piano stores also subscribe to this every-day-is-a-sale-day mentality.  However, one dealer with whom I am acquainted has only one sale a year.  It’s a real sale, not a bogus sale, and it works!   His customers are happy, he is happy and the store’s bottom line is happy.  This dealer sells mainly high-end European pianos at market value (varies with foreign exchange rates but essentially is set by the public and publicly available information), and although he does not represent industry leader Steinway & Sons, has taken a leaf from Steinway’s book: sell bedrock quality and service all the time and never stop selling bedrock quality and service.  Sell on price ONLY when there is a clear and credible reason to do so within the context of an overwhelmingly positive customer experience that enhances rather than detracts from the brand, as habitual discounting invariably does.   It’s a strategy that works for my dealer friend and for Steinway, and both get the margins they want -- and need -- to thrive in a relatively low volume business. 

Takeaway:  Don’t be a price lemming.  Price according to the unique combination of competitive advantages you present to your customers.

Some years ago (quite a few, actually) I recall speaking with the marketing VP of a national fast food chain about service.  This client was stirred up about his company’s opportunity to create long term customer loyalty by enhancing personal experience at the retail counter.  His enthusiasm for experienced-based differentiation seemed two-fold:

(1) The typical fast food customer experience was not all that great – sure, the food was cheap, but the low paid help (and their attitude) was inconsistent – ranging from ho-hum to brusque to downright awful.  He cited a compelling statistic that I have not forgotten: “For every person turned off at the retail counter, seven more never show up.”  And therein lay his opportunity.

(2)  The other thing, he declared, is that his company didn’t know how to make a good hamburger.  They were trying (evidenced by the work going on in their test kitchens downstairs) but hadn’t quite come up to his standards.  Apparently, he wanted to offset this perceived shortcoming by creating a personal service advantage.  I don’t think he stayed with the company very long.

“Service” is a quality so abused that it’s almost meaningless.  Many businesses claim superior service, but few actually deliver in beyond-the-ordinary fashion.  I have worked with clients of all stripes on the service issue, from those who say they offer great service but for whom the words were an outright lie to those whose greatest joy was jumping on a problem and surprising the customer with exceptional, almost legendary service.   One of my clients, who presided over a chain of retail stores that sold nationally branded consumer apparel, constantly talked about “delighting” their customers.  He was a believer, and his people took up the service banner and followed him. 

Delighting customers is a core thing.  It’s something you have to live, breath and sleep to be effective and enduring -- so much so that it should run through your bloodstream as a matter of course.  You know it when you see it, especially when compared to the tired indifference we’ve all experienced from time to time in the marketplace – by the way, don’t get me going on companies that employ an automated phone system to take people’s calls.  That’s a clear sign it’s all about them and not about me.  “Your call is important to us, so please stay on the line.”  Sure ...

Takeaway:   Make service delight part of your company’s Marketable Truth© and reap the benefits -- immediately and in the long run.

Developing -- and using -- a strong Key Message can help sharpen your brand or product presentation and increase your sales effectiveness.   

A Key Message is a compact, well crafted expression of competitive advantage in support of well differentiated and well marketed brands and products that helps assure consistency in every business communication you make:
     

• on your Web site’s Home or About page
• in traditional media marketing
• in blog and social media posts
• on business cards, in brochures & other sales materials
• in video capabilities presentations
• on the sales floor and making sales calls in the field
• in sales and marketing meetings
• in board presentations and investor relations
• in recruiting good people and training them
• in composing your boilerplate
• when making that all important “elevator pitch”.   

Your Key Message begins life as an internal strategic brief, sometimes called a positioning statement.  In a single accessible paragraph, it describes who you are, who your customers are and why they should want to do business with you -- based on a thorough understanding of customer needs, competitors and market trends.  Your Key Message then may be adapted into key sales points that prompt conversations with the clients and customers you want most (in the field and on the sales floor).  It also may be condensed into a tagline that sets your business, brand or service apart in the marketplace.

Here’s a Key Message example for Greeting Seattle, a made-up greeting card and gift store.  Note how their tagline (presented below) evolves from the Key Message – and how exclusive it is to this business.


“Greeting Seattle offers a competitively broad selection of greeting cards and small thoughtful books and gifts, as well as a few seasonal or special occasion flower arrangements, presented in an upscale retail setting that wraps ‘customers who care’ into the selection experience.   Greeting Seattle is priced just above ordinary card/gift shops and is staffed by people who have as much fun working here as customers do shopping here.  Our customers enjoy their Greeting Seattle experience so much that, on average, more than half of them shop with us nearly once a month.  New customers are attracted primarily by words of praise from our existing customers and via our time-proven Personal Greeter consultant and Gift Reward referral systems.  We acknowledge that our continuing success – and prosperity – depends on the considered contributions of each member of the Greeting Seattle team, and it is on that assurance that we plan our future.”  

    Tagline: The Northwest’s Most Enjoyable Gift and
    Greeting Card Experience.

The long-term value of a well-thought-out (and well applied) Key Message cannot be overstated.  

• In sales and marketing, a consistent Key Message can mean the difference between creating immediate belief in your brand or product attributes  ... or not ... between attracting and selling new business or having your presentation fall flat because your story didn't sing. 
  

• Woven into company culture, your Key Message provides a lifting purpose for your manufacturing and support teams, enlarges people's vision and focuses their work on what most needs to be done, leading to increased productivity and greater employee loyalty. 

It may look easy, but coming up with an effective Key Message can be challenging.   However, the payoff begins immediately, because the discipline and focus necessary to develop your Key Message alone should prove well worth the time you invest.  Over the long term, applying your Key Message to every business conversation you have, from Web site positioning to product testimonials to making key sales calls, should translate into more business opportunity, less dependence on price as a sales driver and increased revenue.   It may even help make strategic planning a less time-consuming process by having your ongoing strategic story already in place. 

TakeAway:  Time invested in developing an authentic and compelling Key Message will pay off in improved strategic discipline, more precise brand and product positioning, more effective sales presentations and a more profitable future.  

Do we really need to brand the weather?  I've gotten used to named hurricanes and typhoons, but the whole notion of naming winter storms strikes me as silly.  "Just plain dumb" was my initial thought a bit more than a year ago when The Weather Channel rolled out the lame-brained idea to steal a march on its competitors following Superstorm Sandy, which was born from a late-season hurricane married to a snowstorm and clearly deserved the Superstorm label.  Then came winter storm Athena, followed by Brutus, Caesar and so on, named by a high school Latin class in Bozeman, Montana.

Of course, this attempt to brand and own coverage of winter storms is classic marketing one-upsmanship, a move by TWC that doesn't seem to have caught on anywhere else except sister network NBC, in part because its competitors (including apparently the National Weather Service) aren't allowed to use the names (they must be raging with jealousy).  Nor has the public embraced the idea, if the snickering comments on The Weather Channel's own web site are any real indicator.  But the whole notion fits very well with TWC's overdone approach to branding and packaging our climate, with its contrived weather-driven dramas.  But then again, I don't have 24/7 worth of airtime to fill like they do.

To be sure, "Winter weather can bring freezing temperatures, flooding, power outages, travel disruptions and other inconveniences caused by snow and ice storms. These can be life-threatening situations if the proper precautions are not taken in the hours and days leading up to a winter storm's arrival," noted a TWC article bragging about its idea on weather.com in October of last year.  That's not news. 

Time to fess up.  I'm more comfortable with how we used to learn about the weather: on local radio and TV and sometimes even in the newspaper.  Back in my childhood, what Channel 22 weatherman John Quill lacked in star power he made up for with forecasts that he mostly got right -- and without any more drama than that provided by the storms themselves.  My brother, keeper of family photos, sent me a snapshot this Christmas that showed me and my next youngest brother dwarfed by a 1950s snowfall.  I recall how small we felt standing by those looming piles of snow that nearly touched the eaves of our house, a product of our dad's seemingly endless sidewalk shoveling and later our own.  We weren't weather weenies in those days.  When it snowed, we got commanded out of bed and sent off to school anyway.

As I write, Winter Storm Hercules is doing its best to snarl post-New Years travel in the Northeast, huffing and puffing, blowing the powdery white stuff into prodigious drifts and giving mayors and governors something to bluster about.  Damage will be done, perhaps lives even lost.  But this winter storm is no different than those in countless years past (although winter seems to have arrived earlier this season and with colder breath).  But will naming the thing Hercules increase awareness of the danger inherent in winter storms and motivate more people to take precautions -- that is, over and above normal coverage of a similar unnamed storm?  Or will the outright silliness of this idea just get in the way? 

Takeaway:  If you're going to brand something, make sure people won't end up snickering about it.