This is exactly the kind of thing authors of the unbearably famous Bad Pitch Blog tell those PR practitioners unlucky enough to see their latest debauchery end up on badpitch.blogspot.com.
For several years now, PR pros Richard Laermer (@laermer) and Kevin Dugan (@prblog) have joined forces to write the award winning industry watchdog blog, and now they are hosting their first live teleseminar. And everyone is invited.
Mark your calendars for Wednesday, July 29 from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. EDT. PR know-it-alls Richard Laermer (Punk Marketing, Full Frontal PR) and Kevin Dugan (Strategic PR Blog) are hosting the brand new “Bad Pitch Night School (During The Day).”
Admission gets you:
A smart, step by step approach to pitching that includes hilarious case studies and goes beyond that simple email. From looking at the whole pitch lifecycle, including the truth about pitching bloggers and using social media, to tips that will no doubt make you better-informed (and tell you how) plus the keys to pitch inspiration, they’ll help you improve your game.
Plus, a free e-book of Laermer`s classic Full Frontal PR handbook.
In this nonstop, ridiculously cool hour the boys are going to knock you out with more learning than you thought possible!
$49 bucks gets you admission for as many people as you can cram into a conference room (via speakerphone, natch), and your free e-book. What a deal!
There’s a Bad Pitch Blog Scholarship Program! What would a school (and a recession) be without scholarships? Bad Pitch Blog gives out five FREE student scholarships and five FREE professional scholarships to those professionals “between jobs/in transition/laid off/out of work.” If you qualify write the boys at badpitch@gmail.com Do it now. Time is fleeting.
Learn more, sign up and be cool at www.CrappyPR.com. Oh and laugh a bit.
Punk Marketing is out in paperback now…Buy it from Amazon at http://tinyurl.com/paperpunk. Here is our press release with all the details. Mark and I changed it a lot to make it up to date for a recession age.
PUNK MARKETING
Get Off Your Ass and Join the Revolution
By Richard Laermer and Mark Simmons
The revolutionary real-world guide for creatives and marketing zealots in an updated, recession-proof paperback to help to overthrow marketing as we know it
Ever hear of WIMPLASH? Every economic indicator is moving in the wrong direction and the outlook seems grim. Instead of throwing themselves into the fight, marketers are suffering from what Punk Marketing’s Laermer and Simmons call “wimplash,” the inability to move up, down or sideways. So Punk Marketing is back and better than ever.
The paperback Punk Marketing—in stores and on street corners May 19—is peppered with examples, case studies, faux pas, jokes, and practical advice that every marketer needs right now. A recession provides a momentous opportunity for anyone selling ANYTHING to use whatever budgets they have intelligently. The faint-hearted will retreat to traditional while the wise engage consumers by recognizing a shift in power from corporations to consumers.
Laermer and Simmons, the established, unstoppable authors of PUNK MARKETING: Get Off Your Ass and Join the Revolution (Harper Paperbacks; May 2009; $16.99, trade paperback), are anxious to have their message heard. They write, “More and more and even more consumers are now not consumers but content creators and distributors of really good material too.” As consumers become less passive, traditional marketing campaigns are obsolete.
According to these dudes, snappy TV ads that used to sell products effectively are not potent during a crazy time like this. A myriad of social networking sites, video on and offline, below-the-radar sites, DVR action, teensy pamphlets and fliers, mobile meandering and whole mass of entertainment options have segmented the viewing audience. For companies to promote their products, they must target consumers accurately and work with them to serve their needs.
The book that critics called “blunt, fair, fearless and outrageous—just like the marketing style they espouse” gets its groove on by discussing organizations that have been successful by reaching out to their core demographic in new ways. The authors lift their hands and shout—err, write: “Consumers want to feel the company they buy from has their absolute best interests at heart; so for them that means being treated respectfully as sole beings and not units in some amorphus lump.”
In addition to some of the Punk approaches marketers are now taking, technology has revolutionized marketing. Smart marketers are finding ways to successfully reach consumers via text messages about exciting deals. RFID technology may some day enable a shop to tailor their product offerings to the personal dialections of the consumers. “One of your authors, a professional futurist/show-off, once envisioned a time when you or we can walk by a shop and a special discount or menu would pop onto our teensy screens,” Laermer and Simmons write.
Called a “Book You Should Have Read” by Advertising Age last year, the updated, PUNK MARKETING introduces a radical new approach and a new lexicon to a discipline desperately in need of an overhaul. Founded upon a 100% revised set of assumptions about how consumers interact with brands, it is more than theoretical analysis; it is a set of usable (and funny, and arguable) tools for the modern marketing revolutionary.
According to Laermer and Simmons, it’s high time for marketers to recognize this and change their Fail-oriented ways before the guy or gal who replaces them does it for them.
About the authors:
Richard Laermer is a top trends and marketing speaker, author of the best-selling book Full Frontal PR and the brand new 2011: Trendspotting for the Next Decade, as well as the CEO of veteran agency RLM PR. He is known for his Marketplace commentaries on NPR, hosted the cult makeover series Taking Care of Business on The Learning Channel and is a frequent commentator on CNNMoney.com while co-managing the BadPitchBlog (badrelease.com) for the PR industry! He is also a regular writer for HuffingtonPost (www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-laermer) and helms the new teaching site, HowToFame.com, launching in June.
Mark Simmons has 20 years of experience as a top marketer in the US and his native England , and has been at the topmost edge of new techniques while running his own Anti-Corp agency and as the LA head of groundbreaking bad boy agency Crispin, Porter & Bogusky. Simmons recently launched social enterprise USELESS, dedicated to helping people use less while giving more. He is a full-time rock star marketing consultant toiling for, among others, Gore and Gates, which has brought the planet further from extinction. Prior to all this good, he was one of the top marketers at Coca-Cola in Atlanta.
About the book
Title: PUNK MARKETING: Get Off Your Ass and Join the Revolution
Author: Richard Laermer and Mark Simmons
On sale date: May 19, 2009
Price: $16.99, trade paperback
Pages: 256
ISBN: 978-0-06-115111-8
Imprint: Harper Paperbacks
Contact:
Barbara Teszler
212.207.7727
barbara.teszler@harpercollins.com
Dear Participant In The Punk Marketing Revolution:
You don’t need to be told that we are in the depths of a steep recession. Jobless claims are up, GNP is down, and most importantly for marketers, ad spends are projected to fall a whopping four percent this year. Trust in corporate America is non-existent. Things are bleak.
It is easy to curl into to the fetal position and wait out the warmer economic days, but if you do that, you are missing out! You see, friends, Recession actually *creates* opportunity. When there is less money, marketers have license to be more creative. The people who are scared will retreat into the traditional, boring methods of marketing – another billboard? now? - while those who think outside the bun a little bit will have the chance to be creative and thrive.
Sounds easy, but at this point you’re probably wondering how you can be part of the “in crowd” who makes a buck during the downturn. Let the gentlemen from Punk Marketing give you some tips. Key is to keep a few straightforward concepts in mind and the rest will take care of itself…with finesse and vigor!
First, you have to realize that consumers – not the media or marketers - control the market. What do consumers want? They want you to be there for them. They want to know they are buying a good product. Consumers want you to hold their hands and show them what to buy. They want to feel like they are part of American-led innovations.
Example: A recent Brooks Brothers ad entitled Generations of Style may as well have been clipped from a 1949 life magazine. the message: “We are an American institution, it’s OK to buy from us!”
Once you’ve determined the right angle with which to position your product, remember that marketing in 2009 is like war, but less bloody. We are fighting people who never want to leave their homes, and when we capture them, we shower them with love. After you get consumers to consume, you must reward them for taking the plunge. Reassurance is one of the big changes that needs to be made to adjust.
OK – you know how to position your product, you know how to treat your customers after you get them to buy, but how about the actual marketing?
Simply put: Tone is more important than ever. Your message is meaningless today if you say it with the wrong tone. Your messages should be WARM in the cold recession. Fill people with warmth. People need to feel good about what they are buying, not just adequate.
Take for example, the latest Crown Royal TV spot – the typical alpha male pool shark wins every game at the pub, but leaves early every night to shoot a game or two with his dad, while enjoying Crown Royal. Isn’t that precious? Kind of makes me want to spend $35 on a fifth of bourbon, just to feel better.
Beyond the message and its position and tone, there is a very practical aspect of selling that many marketers completely miss: focus groups do not represent your customers. Your customers represent your customers. Listen to them! Do not make your customers feel stupid by telling them what research presumes they are thinking! Original Punk Marketer Henry Ford once famously said that if he listened to what his customers thought they wanted, they would have said “a faster horse.”
Your message should be crafted in a way that provides people with the idea that they are getting something of value when they purchase your product instead of just a low price. Cheap is what chickens do! People want to feel like they are getting a deal on something that costs a little more.
Nissan’s latest move is an excellent illustration of this. It started selling a $12,000 car — the Nissan Versa — for just under $10,000. All of the sudden, car buyers were getting a deal – a brand new car for below the psychological barrier of a five digit price. Excellent move, Nissan.
The line between low-cost and value is often precarious, and complicated even further by the fact that in a recession, consumers do not want to spend large amounts of money. Big ticket items are no longer the big sellers. Huge capital outlays are for the birds. You need to pick and choose what kinds of products fit the bill: Instead of selling that 52” plasma, how about selling a Blu-ray disc with a pack of microwave popcorn?
Just as consumer spending is principled these days, all recession marketing must be similarly principled. Stick to your customers like your job depends on it, because it does. Now is perhaps not the best time to be over-aggressively pursuing new customers. You need to hang on to your existing customers. They already love you with their wallets!
Creativity plays a big part of the successful recession marketer’s arsenal. There are a few sources of media left that consumers actually listen to. The Internet is one. This is, remember, 2009. There is no excuse for dismissing the online world as fringe. Start using some 2009 methods to get the message out. Twitter, Wordpress, Facebook, Wikipedia, Ning sites, etc. are your friends - these are not cliches in any way. Using them is no longer optional – it is compulsory. Everybody uses a computer now. Don’t you think you ought to start? everyone and their mother is carrying an iPhone or a Blackberry these days – isn’t it about time you figured out how to get to them via their mobile device?
Along with a solid, disciplined message, consumers want clear and concise choices. Don’t confuse them with options and bells and whistles. Be one thing – one really great thing. Tylenol sells no less than 14 kinds of sinus medication. Don’t make your buyers have to become experts on the ins and outs of your product. Hit them over the head with focused and deft marketing, and the rest will take care of itself.
The well-informed, principled, disciplined, and savvy marketer must always keep in mind that marketing is not always the most important thing that your company has in mind. You absolutely must choose your battles. As a marketer, you aren’t going to get every dollar you want. That’s where that noggin of yours comes into play. Didn’t get the $15,000 you wanted for billboards? No big deal. Think up something better to use in hopes that you get the $2,000 for AdWords on a great and unexpected content site. Money is finite – and companies aren’t likely to give you all the dollars you need. Don’t let that be an excuse for running yet another lame radio ad, ok?
Look, friend. Things are bad, no doubt. Chances are they are going to get bad before they get better. This is where you earn your stripes as a marketing pro. Stick to what we know works well and ride out this downturn. This can be your time to shine — if you choose to make it your time to shine.
Punk Marketing on Twitter: www.twitter.com/punkmarketing (duh); paperback Punk Marketing on 5/15.
Bad news is the new good news. Jump on the bandwagon.
Bad news is absolutely everywhere. It is unavoidable. The economy is in shambles, 50 million Americans are without health insurance, unemployment is on the rise in numbers that scare even me, and 43 out of 50 states are now operating on a budget deficit. Meanwhile, some enterprising projects have figured out how to keep their heads above water and even prosper in some cases despite experiencing these bleakest of times by making the (now official) recession seem almost cool.
Kind of.
A great example of the general mopiness of society today is found on television. Maury Povich, the veteran host whose syndicated “talk” show is only slightly less cartoonish than Jerry Springer, has made a living for 10 (!) seasons telling people bad news and reveling in it. People parade onto his stage to be told after a DNA test that they “are NOT the father” or be made aware after a lie detector test that their partner has “cheated with more than 3 women.” (For a fabulous – and farcical – version of this concept, set your DVR to catch the haughty and hilarious The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle with Jennifer Saunders on The Sundance Channel!)
Anyway, entering its 11th season, Maury is holding steady to decent ratings, even outpacing Martha-lite Rachael in some markets. People are apparently looking for anything showing that someone else is in even worse off than they.
Product marketers are also getting into the act. SC Johnson, A (Really-Large) Family Company, is playing up the economic crisis by advertising its inexpensive line of scented oil candles, Glade, as a fantastic alternative to paying more money for the same great-smelling (?) effect. In an ad now playing everywhere, each time a woman lights an expensive candle, it makes a cash register-like CHA-CHING noise. The implication is “Hey! You’ve got no money. Why are you spending 25 cents every time you light that candle, when you could buy a Glade (or “Glaw-Day” as they lampoon themselves as fancy and French in the ad) for a mere penny?”
Glade is still kind of a crummy product – there is a reason why it is so inexpensive – but $3 and a trip to Target sure beats paying Yankee Candle $25 for the freaking privilege of having my kitchen smell like fresh-baked cookies. (Who doesn’t love fresh baked, right?)
Even in what was once recession-proof New York, the local restaurants and businesses are pushing Recession Specials—as if we need a reminder. A popular sandwich shop in Park Slope had a grilled cheese and a cup of soup for four bucks this weekend (it was yummy!). Four bucks is larceny in the trendiest and yuppiest part of Brooklyn! On the last visit, Cookie couldn’t fry the gruyere on organic brioche fast enough.
So, kid, you want to generate some good news? Jump on the bad news wagon cause it certainly won’t be going away anytime soon, despite the overwhelming election of the anti-Bush.
It appears that be you baker, bank, or candle maker, you make people feel like they are saving some dough via your service or product and you’re the best thing since bread or bucks or beeswax, baby.
Self-styled marketing guru Martin Lindstrom has followed up Brand Sense with the much-discussed Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy, his own tale of a multiyear journey through the most in-depth scientific study ever conducted on why we buy what we buy and why some brands “stick” and others don’t. Lindstrom secured funding from international corporations and conducted his study in several countries in order to cast a wide net of subjects. The resulting book is entertaining and yet the results of the study are somewhat counterintuitive.
Without ruining the ending, which I would never want to do, the main thesis of Buyology seems to be that neuroscience and analysis can tell us far more about how the human mind handles the abstract concept of “brand” than traditional notions of market research can. This seems obvious. After all, humans are strange animals, and predicting our behavior is a crapshoot.
We must realize that research like Lindstrom’s isn’t the Rosetta Stone of marketing. The research is solid and pretty darn intriguing, but it does run into a problem now and again when it collides with the intangible human portion of the recipe.
Early on, during a section about a research project regarding advertising during the course of the ‘04 presidential election, the scientists reached this conclusion: “Despite widespread cries that political advertising emphasize “optimism,” “hope,” “building up, not tearing down,” and so on, fear works. It’s what our brains remember.”
This year, we have seen cases where it is simply not true. Have we encountered an exception to the rule or is there no quantifiable rule here after all? Why did Americans choose Barack Hussein Obama in 2008 in overwhelming numbers even when “optimism” and “hope” have been scientifically proven to be disqualifiers? There is something here that brain tech can’t grasp.
Then, another study in Buyology concluded that frequent smokers understand the risks involved with smoking, but that after being shown disgusting black-lung warning labels, they still want the sticks. The brain scans saw the brain processing the images, and recognized how bad they were, but that part of the consciousness disregarded this in favor of that ole nicotine high. Smokers ignore warning labels. Of course they do! They are physiologically addicted to the chemicals in cigarettes! Addicts cannot be dissuaded from behaviors that their body craves, even if they subconsciously know those behaviors are unhealthful. Yep, decades of research on that one.
The point is that while the overly conscientious research in Buyology should open the eyes of anyone involved in our marketing businesses it is not the be-all, end-all in the quest for data in marketing. Lindstrom reminds us that information-gathering is evolving all the time. Gallup polls may soon be antiquated (are they now?) and marketers will need to find crucial information about everything some other way.
Brain tech may be a key piece of forging this next frontier of figuring what the consumer really wants (Lindstrom made a compelling case in the previous book) but it simply cannot be the only one. There are human elements that are even less quantifiable than those thousands of brain scans. In Outliers the curly-haired Gladwell proves beyond a 5 o’clock shadow that humans are capable of devising wayward rules that affect and control the decisions we make—and our destinies. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea for Punk Marketing to read both of these books concurrently.
Pinning down the brain is nearly impossible—as humans we complicate everything we do. I realized as the book snapped shut that this, in the end, belies “buyology.”
