Open Letter to the Lunatic Fringe of Marketing

The longer I'm in the blogosphere, the more I feel that the more-than-a-dozen-readers bloggers to date are often in the innovator camp of the innovation adoption curve (it goes innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards from left to right). Or what The Anatomy of Buzz calls the Lunatic Fringe. In other words, to be perfectly frank I'd be more likely to win the California lottery than have a multinational CMO in their uncreative destruction corporate mind even aware that this blog exists - or many of the fine edgy marketing blogs out there. As much as I try to be a trend translator - basically a bridge builder over to the early majority - I'm well aware of my lunatic fringe tendencies. It's where my heart is.

So I continue to be amazed by the ongoing heaps of attention that is being paid to Lovemarks while innovative ideas go virtually unnoticed. Lovemarks is a book that was intentionally written clear as day (us subversive strategists recognize this work when we see it) for another larger, (and dare I say, more lucrative) audience: The Early Majority. The Early Majority are the executives, advertisers and marketers that wouldn't be caught dead reading Cluetrain. Lovemarks attempts to woo and coax them over a wee bit closer to the edge.

Yes, those folks really are the majority - log off the blogosphere for a moment and attend your next local marketing and communications professional association meeting if you don't believe me. Just the thought of reaching emotionally to customers is anathema to features-and-benefits-and-ROI-lists business-to-business marketers. Without at least swallowing some of the Lovemarks Kool-Aid they ain't ever going to hitch a ride on the ClueTrain or HughTrain or anywhere else left of the chasm.

Guys and gals, I'm thinking there is a chance that Mr. Roberts may be a student of Sun Tzu and Geoffrey Moore and would prefer to lose this little skirmish with the innovators on the far left side of the chasm rather than lose the war to win over the majority. But a complete lesson on change agency isn't the topic of this post. I know from my own personal experience that when I speak in a way that engages the innovators I alienate the early majority and vice versa. It's tough having one leg on each side of a (gaping?) chasm (heh) and actually get through to anyone. Eventually you have to choose your target audience.

You'll note that Kevin Roberts is not evil personified, he is subversively planting little seeds in Lovemarks:

Marketing people talk about emotion. They present charts and diagrams, even raise their voices and wave their arms, but fundamentally they treat emotion as...out-there, felt by someone else and able to be manipulated. Analyzing other people's emotions and refusing to acknowledge our own dumps us in the same old rut. What a waste.

Listening is something that most brands are not great at. They evolved alongside the mass media, and that is where most of them stayed. Talking, talking, talking.

The most curious people in business ought to be marketers. Eager to learn, fascinated by the strange passions of human beings, always asking questions, always in pursuit of the strange, the unusual, or the simply interesting. Most marketers, and to my regret many researchers, are not like this at all.

The desire to control is tough to relinquish, but that is what we must do if we want to start on the journey towards Lovemarks.

Yes, I know that Mr. Roberts isn't doing much about the sinking Titanic. Hmm, let's compute 7000 jobs (according to Johnnie) times $50K/year per employee (yeah, that's probably a low average) which is $350,000,000. Creative destruction doesn't happen fast enough when you have (minimum, didn't include other costs of operations and I'm too lazy to look up their annual report's figures) that many zeroes in your burn rate. And when your customers also have that many zeroes in their burn rate - that's just what's required to keep afloat. Mr. Schumpeter says it's entrepreneurs that creatively destruct industries anyway. And Mr. Christensen while still peddling books to the Titanic crew pretty much agrees. Enough of the past.

Tomorrow: While gazing backwards towards Lovemarks are we missing the fringes of what's next?

Comments

[David Burn]

This is good stuff. Thanks for making the effort and for linking to me. I'm also glad to know that I'm an innovator. I thought maybe I was just a measly early adopter.

[Evelyn Rodriguez]

David, just after I post this and THEN see your recent sermon comparing Lovemarks and the Hughtrain - very perceptive remarks (perhaps you like to have one foot on each side as well - I keep getting an image of doing a cheerleading split over the Grand Canyon): http://www.adpulp.com/archives/000266.html

Innovator, trend translator, laggard, whatever - it really doesn't matter so much where we slot ourselves. A good marketer should be able to wear any and all those hats and step into any of those skins and live in THAT customer's world if only for a moment.

On a personal front, it's more effective to look at ourselves as open, dynamic, and continuous learning OR as closed systems rather where we fit into the buzz curve.

[Evelyn Rodriguez]

Yeah, on second thought, it is more accurate to have titled: "Open Letter to the Lunatic Fringe and Alphas" (The Anatomy of Buzz's Innovators and Early Adopters lingo).

[Jack Cheng]

Those are some excellent points Evelyn, thanks.

[David Burn]

I really have both my feet in the branding camp. I see the Cluetrain "markets are conversations" idea as branding. It's bottom-up, not top-down branding.

I'm still confused as to why people on the Cluetrain, Hugh MacLeod being one of the more prominent voices, posit that "branding is dead." Perhaps what they really mean to say is top-down branding is dead.

[John D]

Great post Evelyn. I'd like to add - I think relationship is as alive as people want it to be. And I doubt the change we're witnessing is just to bottom-up branding. The notion of branding has to be taken apart altogether. Though for now, Eveyln, I agree, still lots of folks on the Titanic, still lots of books to be sold on Lovemarks. Hell, it's simple economics!

"Branding", like "marketing" - whether it's top down within the organization or bottom up within the organization - amounts to 'putting it to' cattle or the marketplace. But as the reality of the empowerment that the internet and other networks can give sinks in, markets will ineveitably be realized as places of reciprocation and community, rather than the corporation's jungle gym. This is the prediction of Cluetrain, and the hope for a bound and branded world.

[David Burn]

By bottom-up I mean the people on the street, not inside the organization. Markets are conversations. I agree. Thus, corporations need to listen to their customers and prospects, in many cases for the fist time.

What's dead is the one-way conversation that we typically think of as brand advertising.

[John]

Got it David. Ill get off my high horse now. I agree, 2 way, I think like in any real relationship, there has to be circulation back and forth.

[James Cherkoff]

I've been chatting with a Saatchi executive who has just left the organisation after six years. He tells me that no one there 'really' believes in Love Marks, 'from Richard Hytner' down.

[jbr]

One would think that with blogs, we would have a higher level of communication. However, it seems that isn't always the case. Especially, in regard to these discussions on branding/marketing. It seems the principles of each camp - Love Marks, Hughtrain, etc - make their statements via the blogdom, then it's left to the readership to determine what the other camp means. Why don't we invite them to do what Rick Bruner did and have a blog with multiple authors? If nothing else, we would have a single blog to visit in order to hear the conflicting viewpoints....even better, how about a Point/Counterpoint podcast between Hugh and Kevin ("Jane, you ignorant slut" is still one of the funniest TV moments ever)?

So, Evelyn, why don't you intercede and get this event going? I know Hugh admires and reads your blog. Likely, he would be open to this. Maybe, get Johnnie Moore to be the moderator?

Regardless of getting the two camps together for a chat, I think there are a couple of truths out there.

One, communication with the customer is changing rapidly due to the internet/blogs. The old mediums - paper/TV/Radio - are losing effectiveness. New mediums based upon internet and other communication tools will take over eventually. For example, it's not a difficult stretch to imagine a ring back tone becoming an advertisement instead of a standard ring back tone or a musical version currently being rolled out by the cell carriers. Absolutely nothing can prevent Verizon/T-Mobile,etc from doing that little trick. The alternative would be subscribing to their musical ring tone features. A nasty, but profitable trick. The company that doesn't respond to and utilize the new mediums will be fighting an uphill battle.

Two, Evelyn is correct....as we look back and discuss Lovemarks/Cluetrain, we are missing the next fringe. The demographics are changing daily....youth are a different breed of customers, communication with them is totally different and their needs/wants are going to be different than a Lovemarks customer. As we spend time discussing branding is dead/not dead, the new market is arriving and many will be ill prepared to deal with them.

So, as the chasm is straddled, lean more to the new and unknown side and be prepared to leap to that side. We are at another inflection point in the world and the next 12 to 18 months will be pivotable for many inhabitants of the marketing world. Whether one stays on the known side of the chasm or leaps to the unknown side, it's best to choose one instead of falling into the chasm. Of course, falling into the chasm may not be too bad either and could turn out to be an alternate path for the same journey.

[Evelyn Rodriguez]

Wow, miss one day of being online - was in back-to-back meetings yesterday in SF, turns out mostly with fellow bloggers - and get way behind.

Great points. I might have to write a post to adequately respond.

David: Bottom-up. I like that, yep, comes from people on the street. As far as feet on both sides of the chasm, I didn't mean so much anti-branding or pro-branding. I meant you seemed to be able to talk to both innovators and early majority well, thus bridging the chasm (I use chasm in the classic Geoffrey Moore sense, not as general analogy) and finding common ground.

John D: Even in Lovemarks, Roberts stresses the importance of spending time with customers within their own environment and discusses ethnography. Lovemarks may not go far enough, but the point of this post wasn't that it was hitting the early majority & late majority (where economics of books sold are), but that something resembling Lovemarks was a necessary passage in many folks evolution of thought to get to point where this discussion we're seeing for instance in this comment thread isn't totally foreign and isn't totally dismissed.

James: Ooh, you got me curious. What DOES your Saatchi exec buddy believe in?

JBR: Hmmm, interesting thoughts. Johnnie has highly encouraged Kevin and people at Saatchi to join in. Yes, I'm also more curious about what is right in front of our noses and what's right around the corner and being involved with actively creating and participating it. I hope all of you are too.

[jbr]

Well, not quite what requested, but over at Bruner's blog .....http://www.businessblogconsulting.com/2004/12/brunerbly_blogd.html

he has invited Bob Bly, direct mktg expert to sit in on a AMA blog seminar on 21January in NY. Will be interesting dialogue....in a comment back to Rick, I have requested a podcast or blogcast of the "Hammah at AMA"...cheesy title, but it reminds me of boxing and Ali in his prime...

[Thom Lawrence]

"By bottom-up I mean the people on the street, not inside the organization"

One of the most powerful themes in Cluetrain is that there are humans on _both_ sides of the firewall. Listen first, sure, but that's not a conversation. Some of the most passionate geeks in your industry should be inside your organization, otherwise there's nobody for your market to have a conversation _with_. Surely?