Will you pretend to love me if I bribe you?

I'm pretty sure nobody takes this route on their quest for true love in their personal life. So why do marketers continue to market this way?

We give coupons to consumers to "incentivize" them (please people, this is not a word) or to reward loyalists.

If you're giving a coupon to a consumer because they can't possibly understand what your product is all about unless they try it and it is too costly for most people to want to take that leap of faith then I suppose I'm OK with it. (Although you really should find a way to tell your story so that people can understand it.) Even so, you should be targeting those coupons to the right people. When you just blast them out, you're more likely to put them in the hands of people who will already want to buy your product without an incentive.

But you better make sure that your product (or, really, offering) is exceptional (as perceived by someone other than you). If it is, they will buy it. And they will not need an external incentive. The offering should be its own incentive.

Now, on to loyalty. My dictionary defines "loyal" as "unswerving in allegiance". If you need to reward your consumer (i.e., bribe them) with something that is non-essential to the relationship, then they are not loyal. By definition.

It's OK to reward a loved one with a gift. It's a symbol of your relationship. It is not the cause of your relationship. If it is, you do not have love. You have mutual expediency. And the reward cannot be the essence of the relationship. It makes no sense to reward someone for loving you by loving them extra that day. The love has to already be there on its own. You can reward them with something external to the essence. Something that symbolizes the essence (flowers, diamonds...)

When you give people a coupon, you're just giving them your offering for free. But your offering is the essence of your relationship with them. If you have to give that away for free then they do not truly value it. You do not have love.

Better to find the people that really love you than to seek out consumers and ask them to behave as if they love you (i.e., buy your offering) in return for a bribe (i.e., the coupon). It doesn't make sense in your personal life and it isn't any smarter in business.

Don't be a tease - you're not that cute

I recently became a fan of Diet Cherry Chocolate Dr. Pepper. I love the product. It was very hard to find though so I emailed the company asking them how I could get the product.

Here is what they sent back:
Dear Mr. Schorr:

Thank you for contacting us about Dr Pepper Diet Cherry Chocolate. Your comments and inquiries are appreciated because they provide valuable feedback about our brands.

We would like to advise you that the Dr Pepper Diet Cherry Chocolate was only a limited edition flavor and it is no longer being produced. We will be forwarding all of your comments over to the appropriate department for review.

Our Company has been making great brands that make a splash for more than 100 years. We are proud of our family of products and are committed to providing a wide range of choices for all individuals.

Thank you for taking the time to contact us. We hope that you will continue to purchase and enjoy our products.

Sincerely,

Consumer Relations

Now first of all, you will notice this is quite impersonal. I'm not feeling very loved here. I'm not even feeling like they get I'm human! But maybe more importantly, this is totally boneheaded! They put something attractive in front of me. They got me interested. And then they pulled it away. It's not coy, it's stupid because now I'm annoyed by them and I'm moving them off my radar screen.

I can imagine the marketing discussions they had. Something about trying to pique interest, to be relevant, to be innovative, to create a sense of scarcity... But in the end, all they have done is piss me off.

Now they might have mitigated the negative impact if they were a little more honest with me and they tried to cushion the blow. If the flavor just didn't do well they could have been up front about the fact that even though I liked it, not enough other people did. Or they could say that they're constantly experimenting with new flavors... And they could have suggested I try some other new flavor they have and sent me a few coupons. (Note: I hate coupons in general. This will be the topic of my next post but in this circumstance, it is appropriate.) But they didn't do this. They were impersonal and didn't try to make up for a ham-handed way of trying to be interesting and mysterious.

So here's what I sent back to them:
I would like to advise you that my consumption of Dr. Pepper was only a limited time event meant to coincide with your production of Diet Cherry Chocolate. I will now return to the diet carbonated beverage I was previously consuming - one that I can rely on to be there when I need it. Please let me know when you are ready for me to rejoin your franchise. By the way, I am an extremely heavy consumer of diet soda. Let me clarify: I am not an extremely heavy person who consumes diet soda. I am rather of moderate weight but I drink a lot of diet soda. It's quite silly actually, but what the hell. I like it.

And that, my friends, is how you lose a customer.

Boycott Movies!

Movies have just gotten too damn expensive. I'm really tired of paying so much to finance the ridiculously lavish lifestyles of the Hollwood elite. Enough is enough. Let's all stop going to the movies for one month.

UPDATE: OK, a friend pointed out that maybe the post above is too terse. [Thanks for the feedback.] So let me elaborate.

The movie industry needs us viewers to go to the theaters, buy DVDs, watch their offerings on cable, etc. in order to make money. Going out to the movies should be the great equalizer in America. Let's face it, not everyone can afford to go to the opera or a Broadway show. And not everyone wants to. But we should all be able to enjoy at least lowbrow movies without feeling it financially. I'm tired of ticket prices going up and up. Especially when the quality of my experience has not increased.

And to top it off, the studios are paying many millions to stars who really don't need all that money.

So, I propose that we remind the movie industry that at some point, prices are too high and demand falls. I suspect a one month boycott of movie theaters would be a good kick in the pants.

Now who's with me? (I feel like John Belushi now...)

Risky compared to what?

The risk management approaches typically employed by companies seem off base to me. (I think financial services companies usually do this well when not caught in the throes of the lunacy that overtakes them every few years.)

The error is in the baseline assumption they make. That assumption is usually one of a risk-free world. Therefore, any initiative they are considering can only increase their risk profile. If they perceive the reward as higher than the risk, they proceed.

But I think this sets too high a bar. Because they do not consider the risk of doing nothing. Risk is just a part of life. In a dynamic world you are always at risk of obsolescence. In other words, you must run forward just to stay in place.

By forcing ourselves and our managers to answer the "compared to what?" question, we can hopefully adjust the baseline so that more initiatives will be approved.

We can change the world

The world is going to change. This is a certainty. And it will change in an unsentimental fashion with no concern for your deeply help beliefs or assumptions.

Sitting astride history and shouting "stop" is simply childish. You have only two real options: 1) Let the change happen as it happens. Guided by randomness and/or the vision of others. 2) Lead and inspire the change in accordance with your vision.

Is your vision any good? I have no idea. You might not either. But get it out there and let the world decide.

We can change the world. With a vision of beauty, purpose and nobility and the passion to never give up.

How to inspire

I was at an innovation conference today and had a chance to attend a lunch hosted by Dan Pink. A question came up about how companies and their leaders can inspire their customers and employees.

There was an answer given (with less than perfect confidence) but I found it, well, uninspired and thus, forgot it.

Here's my answer: be yourself. First you'll need to strip away the years (likely decades) of other people and institutions confusing you about who and what you are. Your parents, other family members, friends, celebrities... all have spent a lot of time trying to sell you an image of who and what you need to be. It is all wrong. You need to be you. And the world needs you to be you as well. As you peel away the harmful effects of the socialization process make sure to distinguish between influences designed to civilize you so that you can live amongst others and influences designed to rob you and the world of your uniqueness (or mojo). This isn't about a return to nature red in tooth and claw. It's about finding the melody of your soul and how it can be harmonized with the worlds in which you live.

Once you can peel away some of the accumulated detritus of an acculturation process that prizes conformity, you can look for the real you. What are you good at? What do you really enjoy? What makes your heart sing? And how can you make other people's hearts sing? What is it that makes you you?

If you can figure this out and act on it, you will inspire others. You will inspire them because they all yearn to be free of the crushing soul-destroying burden of conformity. You will inspire them because they all want more authenticity in their lives. You will inspire them because a person true to him or herself is far more productive than one who expends mental energy carrying and battling a persona that is alien to their true nature.

I should point out that I think this is all totally consistent with Dan Pink's thinking. Go read his new book "The Adventures of Johnny Bunko."

The corrupt calculus of cannibalization

There is something seriously wrong about the way that new business opportunities are evaluated. We always look at cannibalization and incrementality. That is, how much of the new business is truly incremental to the existing business as opposed to simply replacing existing sales. The cannibalized portion is subtracted off of the total sales to yield the incremental size of the new business opportunity.

This is all wrong! And it forces us to undervalue new opportunities.

The reason it is wrong is that it relies on an assumption for which there is a wealth of evidence to the contrary. The assumption is that the pie I am holding on to right now, will remain intact and in my possession in perpetuity so long as I do not discard it of my own volition. But the world does not work this way! Change is the way of the world. And if you are holding on to a tasty pie, rest assured that some hungry dude is out there trying to figure out how to score a piece.

If a new product or service is attractive to customers, then someone will find a way to deliver it at a profit to those customers. If you are the current market leader then this new product or service may cannibalize your existing products or services. And that might make the opportunity look meager. But do you really think that as long as you don't launch the new product or service that nobody else will either? C'mon! Of course they will. And don't get me started about barriers to entry. Yes, in rare instances it is truly impossible for a would-be competitor to enter your market. But usually you can only buy yourself some time at best. And more likely, innovation will flow to those who want to pay for it like water flows through cracks. So those cannibalized sales are gone already! Don't even think about them. Instead, just do your best to identify and satisfy the needs of your customers.

Either you do it or someone else will.