Influential Marketing Blog

Sitting in a hotel room tonight putting the finishing touches on a presentation I am giving today on storytelling, I got an irresistable update to a new blog post over on Tim Ferriss' blog featuring a podcast interview with one of my longtime inspirations as a writer - Paolo Coelho.  His book The Alchemist is a life changing experience for anyone I know who has read it (including me). So when Tim published his interview, I immediately listened to the whole thing. I highly recommend it. 

In the midst of finishing my presentation and also putting the last edits together on my second book, the timing was perfect for the interview ... which perhaps explains why I've spent the last hour procrastinating on finishing my presentation and writing this post instead. But if you aspire to write anything from a book to a great blog post, I guarantee that some of Coelho's tips below will help. Here are his frequently "tweetworthy" quotes that I wrote down from his audio podcast:

On Inspiration: "I procrastinate, check some emails ... then I start. I write my books very quickly because I cannot stop."

On Confidence: "You cannot sell your next book by underrating your book that was just published. Be proud of what you have."

On Simplicity: "What counts in a good story is the person inside. Keep it simple."
On Trust: "Trust your reader. Don't try to describe things. Give a hint and they will fulfill this hint with their own imagination."

On Writing: "I write the book that wants to be written. Behind the first sentence is a thread that takes you to the last." 

On Expertise: "You cannot take something out of nothing. When you write a book, you use your experience."

On Critics: "Writers want to please their peers. They want to be recognized. Forget about this. Who cares? You should care to share your soul and not to please other writers who will write a review that nobody is going to read."

On Overcoming Stagnation: "If I don't feel inspired, I need to move forward. You need to have be disciplined."

On Research: "If you overload your book with a lot of research, you are going to be very boring to yourself and to your reader.  Books are not there to show how intelligent you are. Books are there to show your soul."

On Notetaking: "I use notes to take them out of my head. I will never use them the next day - they will be useless."

On Story Arcs: "There are only four types of stories: lovestory between 2 people, lovestory between 3 people, a struggle for power, and a journey."

On Style: "Don't try to innovate storytelling. Tell a good story and it is magical. I see people trying to work so much in style, finding different ways to tell the same thing. It is like fashion. Style is the dress, but the dress does not dictate what is inside the dress. What counts is the person."

On Notetaking: "If you want to capture ideas, you are lost. You are going to be detached from emotions and forget to live your life. You will be an observer and not a human being living his or her life. Forget notetaking. What is important remains, what is not important goes away."

On The Alchemist: "I wanted to write a story about my life. But I don't know why I chose a shepard. I've never been a shepard. When you write a book in one act, it is not such an effort to write it."

Thanks to Tim for offering up access to the mind of one of the most prolific and inspirational modern fiction writers - and to Paolo Coelho himself for taking the time to sit down and take all of us behind the scenes on how the magic really happens. 

I couldn't help but feel sorry this year for anyone who only watches the Super Bowl ads for entertainment. Perhaps the most defining feature of all the ads this year was how uniformly uncreative and dated they were. Marketers turned to old and obvious gags like girls in bikinis and dogs (lots of dogs) to try and carry their ads. The result was a very disappointing collection of ads for anyone who loves marketing and the hype of Super Bowl advertising. Still, there is plenty of marketing to learn from all the efforts this year, so let's get started in breaking down the strategy behind the ads and my picks for the biggest winners and losers this year.

BEST STRATEGY - Samsung

For months now, Samsung has been running a brilliant series of ads poking fun at all the "iSheep" obediently waiting in line overnight for the latest Apple product with their tagline "the next big thing is already here." Boosted by their recent announcement of record profits last quarter from strong sales of mobile devices, they are one of the small few mobile devicemakers who offer a viable alternative to the iPhone. What made this ad so good is how it took the message from previous ads and changed the "us vs. them" dynamic of the guy in the know about Samsung to give everyone in line the Samsung. Filled with celebrity cameos and lots of product shots, the ad got their overall strategic message across ... the next big thing is indeed here, and it is a Samsung.

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/CgfknZidYq0 ]

WORST STRATEGY & WASTE OF MONEY - Budweiser

This year Budweiser had 6 spots and all of them inspired more confusion than anything else. In half they focused on the heritage of Budweiser and how they have been around for a really long time (long enough to be served by bars after prohibition was lifted). In two they introduced a new kind of beer called "Platinum" which I think you might be able to earn airline miles for drinking. Or maybe it was a luxury version that they plan to offer in high end restaurants. No one was really sure. And just in case the lull wasn't complete, they even went for the "dog gets guy a beer" gag. If there was a strategy behind any of these ads, it was surely tough to pick out. That alone isn't unique for Budweiser, but at least in previous years they managed to entertain us and make us laugh. Not this year.

BEST AD - Fiat Seduction

My pick for the best ad of the night comes from Fiat with their ad called "Seduction" for the new unique looking Abarth. Unlike so many other ads this year, Fiat didn't feel the need to put a hot girl in a bikini and have her play the part of dream girl. Instead, they create a sense of mystery by having her speak in Italian, make her clearly in control of her interaction with the guy in the ad, and use the familiar experience of the first time you see an unforgettably beautiful woman to explain the feeling of seeing the new Fiat Abarth for the first time. The connection was easy to understand, memorable and fit perfectly with what looks to be a great car.

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/cpi2IAec9Ho ]

WORST AD - TaxAct

Um, a kid runs around trying to find a bathroom and ends up going pee in a swimming pool ... and this relates to taxes how? This was easily the dumbest ad of the night, not remotely strategic and completely unfunny. When drunk guys at home watching the SuperBowl tell their buddies they could create a better ad for $2 million, this is the ad they probably point to.

BEST TREND: CORPORATE REALISM

Throughout the night, there were a few examples of what is becoming a great trend in business which I have written about before - the rise of humanity. The way it came out through the Super Bowl was in more focus on real people and the things they are doing. I agree that on a day like today, the ads that took this approach were probably a bit drier and not likely to show up on a USAToday poll as favourite ads. But in terms of marketing strategy and demonstrating a real and human side to the brands, they were big wins. Best Buy, for example, featured real entrepreneurs who created mobile apps and tools (earning them great social media cred and buzz). GE featured real people in their two inspiring ads that continue to position GE as a brand that puts their employees front and center. The last great example was the NFL running their ad featuring players going to fan's homes and offices to sing their own rendition of "wind beneath my wings" to thank fans for all their support. Whether humanizing employees, NFL stars, or visionary entrepreneurs ... the ads that chose to do this universally worked on a strategic level.

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/X70fbBEYplg ]

WORST TREND: DOGS EVERYWHERE

Let's just count the things that dogs did this year in Super Bowl spots:

1. Dog wins race wearing Skechers running shoes.
2. Dog buries cat and buys owner's silence with Doritos.
3. Dog gets Bud Light beer.
4. Dog loses weight then chases car.

Add them to the clydesdale horses and cheetahs and it makes for a slate of Superbowl ads that would make the Humane Society proud. Unfortunately, none of them stood out as anything more than ordinary.

BEST ORIGINALITY - Bridgestone

In case you forgot that the Superbowl is actually a football game, Bridgestone was one of the few advertisers to remember that - using the idea of optimizing the balls for all sports as the background for the great creative concept in this ad.  Using their high traction material to make footballs and basketballs was a great example of how they made their technology relevant to football fans and watchers in a new way.

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/LetCUzYa2Vg ]

WORST ORIGINALITY - Pepsi Max

Seriously Pepsi, haven't we seen the "guy with the Coke shirt/hat/truck drinks Pepsi" gag before? This ad has marketing executive unwilling to pay for a new creative idea written all over it. 

BIGGEST WINNERS - Adriana Lima and NBC

After the big game, one of the biggest winners are likely to be Victoria's Secret model Adriana Lima who was featured in both the Teleflora ad and the Kia Dream Car ad. To be the leading girl in two Super bowl spots in a single year is unheard of and I am sure she is already seeing a big awareness bumb in her personal profile and career.  The other big winner will likely be NBC, who filled the broadcast with ads for their own new and upcoming shows. Everything from Celebrity Apprentice to The Voice to 30Rock was promo'd for the world to see.

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/LSs5kaj9f5k ]

BIGGEST LOSERS - GoDaddy & Budweiser

After a few years of sticking with the same gag of almost naked girls and the promise to "see more online" it is starting to get old. The live commentary recorded the same kind of sentiment. These were both traditional Super Bowl advertisers that seemed to be advertising again more out of tradition than any real strategy.

BEST NOSTALGIA - Acura

There were a few ads that pointed backwards in time, from Honda's Ferriss Bueller remake to Budweiser talking about their long history, or the NFL showing an ad called timeline that looks at the evolution of the NFL. The best of the lot was Acura's use of Seinfeld, where the ad took moments from the show that fans would recognize and incorporated them into an entertaining spot.

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/YOL22euixuA ]

BEST CASTING - Dannon Oikos Yogurt

The Dannon Oikos ad with a woman head butting John Stamos for a yogurt was funny on its own, but to choose a dreamy actor who people haven't seen in a while (and one with a Greek heritage!) was a perfect choice for promoting greek yogurt to women. Not over the top like the David Beckham underwear ads from H&M, but just right. Oikos itself may have been an unexpected brand to advertise, but one who likely did a lot to reach their target audience by remembering (unlike all the bikini-featuring brands) that plenty of women watch the Super Bowl too.

BEST USE OF HUMOR - M&Ms

Picking the funniest ad of the night is not a hard choice. Only one ad all night actually made me and several friends laugh out loud while watching ... the brown M&M spot. Maybe it was funnier because I'm brown myself, but this was perfectly scripted and executed.  The animated dancing of the creepy "naked" red M&M who strips off his red was perfectly done - and a great usage of the M&M candy personalities.

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/yn3mktl30iw ]

BEST RISK TO PAY OFF - NFL

Calling attention to the controversy of player head injuries and the dangers of football was a bold move for the NFL. In Evolution they offer up the timeline of everything that has happehend to help protect players through time and point the spotlight at the fact that they aren't done yet. It was a risky move, but one that I think will pay off as a powerful reminder of how seriously the NFL is taking player safety as an issue.

BEST TIMING - TELEFLORA

while some have already objected to the underlying message of this ad (that flowers on Valentines will lead to getting action), the timing of this ad stands out only because no other advertiser seemed to realize that Valentine's is less than two weeks away.

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/uWrJgFjxlS0 ]

WORST OVERHYPING - Century21

For more than a dozen ads during the pregame show, Century21 played ad after ad showing their agent up against some recognizable celebrities in a few different categories. Each ad hyped their upcoming BIG ad that would play during the third quarter and warned viewers to watch out for it. The actual ad itself had been so built up, you were expecting something significant.  The ad it self was little more than something ordinary. We get it, you can pay some celebrities to show up in your ad. Any other time, that would be cool. For the Super Bowl, we kind of expect that.

WORST KNOCKOFF OF A PREVIOUSLY SUCCESSFUL IDEA - VW

The whole connection of the dog losing weight both in the actual VW ad and the "prequel" ad that was released several days ago was stretched. While their Star Wars themed ad with the kid dressed as Darth Vader was a hit last year, this year just seemed like they were trying too hard to be just as cool. At the end of the new ad, the guy at the bar said the "Vader kid was better" ... he was right.

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/UY9GdLw2kG0 ]

BONUS ADS - 2 Non-nationally Televised Ads Worth Watching (SeaWeb + Kaufmann Foundation)

Often cause related ads don't get the national spotlight because of the high price tag, but do get shown during pregame programming and regionally. Here are two that stood out for me - one for the message (which I truly believe) that entrepreneurs can change the world.  The second from an organization that I have worked with in the past which used the bold strategy of fading to black for 5 seconds in their 30 second spot to illustrate the power of silence when used creatively. 

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/OACMR16y5LI?rel=0 ]

Last year on a trip back to the US from South Africa, I picked up a magazine about a topic I knew very little about. It is of the common tricks I use to learn about different industries outside of the ones I work directly with – and in this case, the magazine I ended up with was called Farmer’s Weekly.

The content was as you would expect, advice for farmers on techniques, information about regulations that will affect their industry and ads for tractors and things like that. In the middle of the issue I picked up was a feature article about what the author called the “Amish Paradoxâ€

This paradox describes the unexpected methods that the Amish use when farming their land that are working so well that they are continuing to run their farms profitably without interruption while many other farmers are struggling to make ends meet and often going under as well.  What makes the Amish technique so special?

They rotate their crops consistently (planting different items at different parts of the yar. They never use chemical fertilizers and use something called “legume-based pastures’ to keep the fertility of their land. They tend to grow smaller fruits and veggies (which some say they are tastier to). Perhaps most importantly, they do what is called “adding value†– by producing additional products such as fresh cheese.

In an industry facing increasing pressure from large industry leaders to plant more genetically modified crops, and focus on volume above all else … the Amish philosophy stands out. What can you learn from their lesson, even if you are not in farming?

When it comes to economic theories, there is plenty of fascination in the business world around how to explain what drives business and purchasing activities. Behavioural economics, the field of economics concerned with examining why people behave the way they do when it comes to their purchasing behaviour, is hot right now.  Bestselling books like Freakonomics and Predictably Irrational dig deep into the psyche of people to try and explain seemingly illogical actions.

My own upcoming book called Likeonomics, to some degree, looks at a similar theme of why we do business with people and businesses we like and what impact likeability has on building a trusted business. As part of the research for that book, I have come across a disturbing number of examples of a new type of economic philosophy which is becoming sadly common, and which cannot be explained by modern economic theory.

I have started referring to this philosophy as Delusional Economics – a new economic principle which explains the growing number of businesses who expect some type of unreasonable behaviour change or act of altruism among their consumers in order to help their business succeed.  This is not a strategy for success, even though sadly many businesses fall prey to it. Here are what I believe the four key principles of Delusional Economics are, and how you might avoid applying them to your own small business:

A few weeks ago it was my birthday. The day before on a Saturday morning, my two boys came leaping into our room very excited to wake me up. It wasn't so much about my birthday, unfortunately, as it was about getting ready to do their favourite thing on a Saturday morning: going to IHOP for pancakes. And when there is a birthday involved, it is an even bigger deal. Your birthday is a celebration there. They bring over at least 6 of the wait staff to sing their own version of the birthday song to you. You get ice cream for breakfast (what kid wouldn't love that?).

People love celebrations - and they love to be at the center of attention. Birthdays are easy. Probably any restaurant would do something special for your birthday. But what about the moments that people forget to celebrate? 3 days ago was the first day of the Chinese New Year. It is the Year of the Dragon. What did your business do to celebrate? Unless you happen to be Chinese, probably nothing. 

Life and culture gives us plenty of moments to celebrate, but often we let them pass without doing anything. If we could, however, it would be an unexpected delight. Today FinnAir offered a perfect example of that - as they filmed and posted a video on YouTube of their cabin staff performing a surprise Bollywood dance on a flight from Helskinki to India in celebration of India's Republic Day:

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/mEsnb3kUDAw?rel=0 ]

South Asians and anyone with a passion for India (or marketing) have been sharing this on Facebook and talking about it all day today. It is going what you might call "micro-viral." In other words, it is going viral among the exact small target community that a marketing team should care most about - people highly likely to travel to Southeast Asia. The timing is perfect too, as one of the things that many South Asian families start to think about at the beginning of the year is planning their travel for the rest of the year. And flights to India get booked far in advance.

So this surprise dance has a potentially beautiful marketing payoff - to get people who are considering travel to India later in the year to consider using FinnAir to get there. As of now the video only has a few thousand views. Perhaps it will never get a million or more. But by offering an unexpected celebration, they have positioned their brand as one that offers a connection to India (literally and figuratively). My guess is that it is already paying off.

Every year at the start of the new year there is something that most of us do without realizing it. It is related to making new year's resolutions, but it is more about sequencing your long term goals into the order in which you want to achieve them. One example might be saying to yourself, "I want to be married and then have a kid before I turn 35." Life is full of these little promises. So full, in fact, that often we make them to ourselves without even thinking. It raises an interesting marketing question as well.

What would it take to get a customer to reevaluate the life sequence they have already set for themselves?

It becomes a particularly important question when you consider a brand selling a product that is all about fitting into the right stage in life. A product, for example, like a car. When you consider when people buy new cars, it is very much about life's stages. Graduating from college, landing a new job, getting married or having a kid. Each of these life changes can often be triggers to consider buying a new car.

Honda's new campaign for the CRV may have found one way to solve that challenge. With their Honda LeapList campaign, they encourage consumers to go online and make their own lists of what they want to accomplish before they turn 30, or what they want to do before they get married. It is a brilliant way not only to encourage people to dream and perhaps even act on their longstanding dream to travel the world, but also to encourage them to think about how getting a new car might fit into that sequence. The underlying message is a perfect one for their consumers: why wait? You can do all the things you want to do, and you can do them on your own time. But maybe you should just think about buying that car right now instead of waiting.

Sure it's clearly a marketing message - but what they perfectly prove is something that any marketers would do well to remember. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do to sell your product is help your customers to imagine exactly when they should buy it.

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/Vdf5Szv86hs ]

Most of us have heard the statistic that it is about ten times more likely that someone will post a comment online about a negative experience than a positive one.  It is not hard to believe if we just imagine our own experiences.  When we are a satisfied customer, usually the easy thing to do is go merrily on our way.  If the opposite happens, however, human nature is to seek retribution and the web is the perfect conduit. 

Negativity is super easy to post online, and irresistible because of the side benefit of being able to influence people who you have never met.  Add in the simplicity of Twitter and how it allows a constant stream of 140 character rants … and anyone could be forgiven for describing the Internet as the biggest complaint box the world has ever seen.

Most social media advice you read will tell you to start by listening to what people are saying about your brand online. Find the negativity and you can engage people and hopefully turn their experience around. What if you took an even more extreme approach and dived headfirst into the negativity?

“HateSurfing†is a term that describes the act of going online specifically to read as many negative comments, blog posts, tweets and messages as possible to generate insights that can help you run your business better.

A simple example is going to any product’s page on Amazon and only reading the 1-star reviews. Or you might do a targeted search on Twitter for “hotel†and “hate†to see what people are talking about that they hate about their hotel experiences, no matter where they are staying.  There are three core principles that can help you effectively use hatesurfing to find useful insights for your business.

The ultimate benefit of hatesurfing is that it can help you to run your business better, and spot the opportunities to delight customers which your competitors might be missing. 

Despite how it might seem, this is not another post about how you can create a more “green†business. Being green is a great business practice, and has the side benefit of helping your small business to make a positive difference in the world. When we think of recycling, it is no surprise that most people would immediately think of collecting newspapers and plastic bottles.

What if instead you considered recyclability as a principle that you could apply to many different aspects of your business? Here are just a few examples of how this could work:

As each of these examples share, there are ways that you can make your business more recyclable just by paying more attention to the moments where you have an opportunity you could take advantage of.

The land grab is officially starting. For the first time since the popularization of the Internet, the big news today is that ICANN is opening up the ability for the creation of new suffixes that come after the dot, such as .com or .org. The open application process lets any organization apply to be the manager of a new top level domain (TLD) and applications are expected for everything from categories and industries like .ngo (for charities and nonprofits) or .city (for cities). In addition, of the over 2000 applications expected (despite the $185,000 application fee), more than 2/3rds will expected to be brands who are registering their own brand out of fear of cybersquatting.

This may not matter as much as many marketers and brands think it will. In fact, here are five big reasons why as of right now this is an overhyped development in technology:

1. History hasn't been kind to TLDs.

Wouldn't it be great if you were in the travel industry to be able to signify your site with a .travel domain name? Or for career sites to use .jobs?  Or museums to use .museum?  Well, all of those top level domains already exist. How often have you navigated to a site that uses any of them? New TLDs don't matter until people's behaviour starts to change for using them.

2. Any changes are years away.

The application process will be open for the next three months, and then will close. From that point, experts are predicting that it will be at least another year or two before ICANN is able to decide which of the TLDs are approved. The most obvious proof that this process will take years? There are a bunch of new consulting companies popping up as experts who can smell money to be made in the interim.

3. Categories will require a shakeout.

When tags started becoming popular to describe content online, it was seen as great news. Now you could describe content in a way that would index it automatically. The only problem is that people use different words. Some people call a retail place a shop and some call it a store. Will more people use .shop or .store?  How about .bazaar or .boutique? Until there is a single word, a TLD for a category really won't matter.

4. Google is still the kingmaker.

What most people are forgetting in all the hype is that a TLD really won't matter at all unless almight Google decides to list it in search results. So which TLDs get approved matter less than which ones Google chooses to index as part of their regular search results.

5. The web is now global.

In the early days of the web, .com (short for communications) was ok because the vast majority of sites were in English. Today the web is a different place. So TLDs that are in English may not see wide adoption globally. And different countries may use different TLDs. So the truly global TLDs like .com or .org may be few and far between ... and they may not be in English at all.

No one writes a business book about leadership to help hungry children. Leadership, we usually read, is about having a grand vision. It is about the touchdown pass. No one wants to hear about the months you spent in the summer working out in the weight room. In our quarterly culture, fast results are the only thing that matters, and we expect our CEOs to be larger than life. So when David Novak, the CEO of YUM! Brands -- which owns KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell and employs over 1.4 million people worldwide -- first wrote a leadership book, I expected it to be about having a big vision.

Instead, Novak's newly released book Taking People With You is a surprisingly practical step by step guide on how to be a daily leader instead of an annual visionary. This week I had the chance to speak with him about the book and about why he felt it was so important to share his message with the world. His surprising answer for the first motivation to write his book is that all the proceeds from the book go to the United Nations World Food Programme (a CSR partner of YUM! Brands), so it may hopefully help feed some children. His second reason was because he felt it was time to share lessons from a management training program and philosophy he had already been using for 15 years to train over 4000 restaurant managers with huge success within YUM! Brands.

Here were five questions I asked him and his responses:

Q: How important is social media and digital tools to the way that you communicate and take people with you?

A: Even if you are in a huge company, you have to do everything you can to make the company smaller. I do a blog on my travels in the first person. Tell people what I see in each of our markets. I personalize it. I think relationships and having people feel like you are engaged and care is absolutely critical. If you are an "ivory tower leader" and never get out of your office, then you aren't going to get work environment and culture you need.

Q: In the quick service restaurant industry, there is high turnover. How important is what you do to helping address that issue?

A: Great people leave for two reasons. Money is not one of the reasons. The first real reason why people leave is because they don't get along with their boss. Second reason is where people don't feel appreciated. It may be more true in the services business, but it is true in any business.

Q: How important is likeability to leadership and taking people with you?

A: It is hard to like somebody who doesn't like you. You have to be a person that people want to be around. I don't think people follow people they don't like. They don't buy brands they don't like. But doesn't mean you need to run a popularity contest. Your aim should be to get a point where people want to be around you.

Q: What is the biggest mistake that you see other leaders and CEOs of organizations making?

A: Leaders don't tend to be self aware. They don't know how what people really think of them. Leaders are often in a cocoon, seeing themselves in a way which may not be true.  Also, a lot of times leaders will assume that people will just do their job. People want to be part of something bigger. Just because someone works for you, doesn't mean they will just do what you want them to do. That's niave. The real trick to getting results is involvement.  You need to get your people involved.

Q: One day when you one day retire or leave YUM!, how will you want people to remember you?

A: I would like them to remember me as a leader who believes in them and cared enough to pass on the learnings that I was privileged enough to gain. That I was genuinely a leader.

Disclaimer: Ogilvy, my employer, does some marketing and communications work for YUM! Brands. This interview was not solicited or granted as part of our work for them or compensated in any way. Novak's publisher (Portfolio Penguin) came to me directly to review the book, and I accepted.