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- Bait and switchToday
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I feel badly for the airline industry. They are caught in a never-ending price war due to online websites and their own commodification. Pick the cheapest flight to get from here to there...
The natural short-term solution is bait and switch. Advertise the lowest price you can imagine and then require add on fees so you can actually make a profit.
Air Canada, which my readers generally concur is the single worst major airline in North America, has a fascinating policy. No oversized duffel bags, regardless of weight, unless they contain hockey gear. No shin guards, you pay $80 a bag.
Of course, you can have whatever rules you want, even if they're only designed to help defensemen. The problems with bait and switch are:
- You have to be very careful to apply them equally, because people hate being treated worse than everyone else.
- You have to be prepared for anger, resentment and brand disintegration.
As I said, this is a short-term strategy. Yesterday, they charged me $160 for two bags that had successfully gone through their system uncharged just three weeks earlier. And they did it only three minutes before four of my fellow travelers (and friends) checked virtually identical bags for free.
But the purpose of this rant isn't to hassle Air Canada. The purpose is to learn a key lesson from Disney:
When there is both pain and pleasure associated with your service, work extremely hard to separate them by ti - Little bitsYesterday
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Aaron decided that the best way to tell his story was to turn his web site into exactly one (non-scrolling) page. I think that boundaries sharpen the mind. And if you have a one page web site, why not try turning it into ten pages to see what happens.
Draw anything for $2? I think it's a brilliant way to turn the pricing model of art on its head, to gain a following and to practice your drawing. On a similar tangent, Elizabeth points us to an art site that sells limited editions and slightly less limited editions at standard prices. What's the 'correct' price for a piece of art? Is it only art if it costs a lot of money?Ted Matthews has an interesting thought. Branding is too important to be left to the marketing team. If branding is everything a company does, and the marketing folks persist in acting like advertising people, then put the CEO or her surrogate directly and totally in charge of what a brand means.
It turns out that a lot of searches online are for things that are pretty simple. Like how to boil an egg or how to count cards. Just because you already know something doesn't mean everyone does. Think even simpler than you would expect
- How (not to) pick a company spokesmanYesterday
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39 years ago, Neil Armstrong became the most famous person in the world.
He was an astronaut, of course, but there were dozens of people who could have done the technical work that Armstrong did. What Armstrong became was a spokesperson for an organization, a nation and a movement.
NASA did what many organizations do when picking someone to act as company spokesperson. They avoided risk, played it safe and chose someone who wouldn't make a ruckus.
What a shame.
Armstrong could have taught the world about science. He could have done work that would have won him a Nobel Peace Prize. He could have had a huge impact on his country and the world. Instead, he mostly disappeared.
Many organizations worry that if they put their clout behind an individual, he or she will gain notoriety and power and eventually double-cross the organization. So, instead, they go for bland.
As marketers, you already see the problem. It's like putting a tennis ball on the end of your sword. Sooner or later, people communicate with people. Sooner or later, your organization needs a voice. You take lots of risks when you market a product, and this one--the risk of an engaging and motivated spokesperson--is smarter than most.
- Are they ready to listen?July 22
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Most marketers forget to ask this critical question.
When I was pitching for investors in Yoyodyne (1994/1995) I met with many of the biggest VCs on the East Coast. Same company, same pitch, very different results.
In retrospect, the reason was simple, and it didn't have a lot to do with the way I presented our company. Firms that had funded Federal Express and insurance companies and patented chemical formulations weren't ready to hear about an Internet company in 1994. It didn't matter what I said, they had decided before I showed up. Fred Wilson and Jerry Colonna, on the other hand, had a different worldview. They were choosing to pay attention.
A few years before that, I had published a book about a political issue. An activist's handbook. I had 20,000 copies in my garage when I found out about a large march in Washington. I bought an outdoor booth and trucked the books down to DC. I stood on the Mall in my little booth and watched more than 250,000 people walk by in less than two hours. Every single one an activist. Every single one a demographically perfect match for my handbook. After 100,000 people had walked by and we'd sold only one book, I lowered the price from around $10 to $1 just to prove my point--that it wasn't the book and it wasn't the price, it was the ability of the audience to listen that mattered. This group, in this moment, was there to march, not to shop.
Most people, most of the time, steadfastly refuse to pay atten
- The web doesn't careJuly 21
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When I first started talking about Permission Marketing ten years ago, marketers asked, "sure, but how does this help us?"
A decade later, marketers look at Wikipedia or social media or the long tail or whatever trend is finally hitting them in the face and ask the same question.
Here's the essential truth:
This is the first mass marketing medium ever that isn't supported by ads.
If a newspaper, a radio station or a TV station doesn't please advertisers, it disappears. It exists to make you (the marketer) happy.
That's the reason the medium (and its rules) exist. To please the advertisers.
But the Net is different.
It wasn't invented by business people, and it doesn't exist to help your company make money.
It's entirely possible it could be used that way, but it doesn't owe you anything. The question to ask isn't, "but how does this help me?" as if you have some sort of say in the matter. You don't get a vote on whether Google succeeds or whether your customers erect spam filters.
The question to ask is, "how are people (the people I need to reach, interact with and tell stories to) going to use this new power and how can I help them achieve their goals?"