Why consumers prefer 70 items for $29 and not $29 for 70 items

Facts might not matter as much as presentation.

You probably suspected that.
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Presenting item quantity information before price (70 songs for 29 dollars) may make the deal appear much more appealing than if the price were presented first (29 dollars for 70 songs ).

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That's a curious result form this marketing study.

Learn more here
http://truthdive.com/2012/01/18/Why-consumers-prefer-70-items-for-29-and-not-29-for-70-items.html

Do You Need More of Your Clients To Complain?

Maybe your business would improve if you heard more complaints from your customers.

Re-read that last statement and instead of focusing on “more complaints” focus on “heard more”.

It might not be about needing more complaints. There could easily be enough available. It might be that you need to listen better to the complaints. Those customer complaints could be an amazing free marketing research resource for you – if you listen.

I overheard a mother protest that she was tired of the school calling her about her son. Wow. Why would she not want to receive feedback from the school about her son? Good or bad news – wouldn’t a caring mother want to know how to help her son? The school was calling her because they cared and thought that she did too. Apparently she didn’t want to be bothered with bad news.

Good or bad news – you’d think that a concerned business owner or company president would want to know how to improve the experience for his customers. Listen without judging to customers and they will tell you what you need to know.

Customer complaints mostly come from customers who care about the relationship and want to improve it. Why would any business ignore this valuable constructive feedback?

Customers who don’t care about you or your relationship don’t complain. They quietly leave and buy somewhere else. They will most likely tell their friends about their negative experience.

You might not like to hear what they are saying. It might hurt. You might even take it personally.

The simplest way to reduce the complaints from customers is to tell your customers that you don’t care about them or their opinions. You can to that by making the complaint process onerous. You can dissuade customer complaints by instructing your staff to quote company policy. You can reduce customer complaints by refusing to talk to customers and instructing your staff to screen all calls.

I agree that not all complaints are valid. But you can learn from all complaints. If you are the CEO don’t be surprised if you don’t like the tone of the customer complaint by the time it gets to you. Just imagine the layers of frustration that your customer might have encountered on the uphill climb to reach you.

If you are the CEO and you are shielding yourself from customer complaints – then don’t be surprised when you get fired – by the customer or by your board.


George Torok

Marketing Speaker

New Store Launch from Somebody??

Somebody is launching a new retail outlet in Burlington, Ontario at Walkers Line and Upper Middle Road.

Somebody has been building this new location for over three months. I run past this location three times a week.

Somebody is spending lots of money to acquire and construct this new building at a major intersection.

Somebody is probably hoping for a good return on their investment. That's what any business investor wants.

Somebody is keeping this new location a secret. There are no signs indicating who is "coming soon". Keeping secrets are not a good marketing strategy unless you make a big deal about your secret receipe like KFC. There is nothing to indicate who is opening in this new location and I find that strange.

My questions are "Who?" and more importantly "Why?"



Both questions are sparked by my curiosity. If I'm curious than perhaps hundreds or thousands of people who pass this location every day might also be curious. Curiousity is a good lead in to marketing. And at some point you must answer the curiosity to make the connection with your prospect.



Curiousity unaddressed is simply frustrating.

It has a drive through so I'm guessing that it is either a bank or a franchise restaurant. Banks are more arrogant so that's my bet. I can't believe that a restuarant could be so stupid to miss the opportunity to promote during contruction.

Why would any business miss such an easy marketing opportunity to promote it's new location? Uncertanty? Arrogance? Insensitivity? Poor planning?

What do you think?

PS: I'll let you know what shows up.

George Torok

Marketing Speaker

Power Marketing on Facebook

MarketingZoo on Twitter

What is Strategic Positioning

And how does it impact the rest of the business?

• Do you see business making this conscious decision?
• What benefits come from this?
• What is the cost or loss?
• Examples welcomed.

While researching the topic of Strategic Positioning I surveyed people in my Linkedin Network. I found it helpful to learn how other experts perceived this topic. My thanks to all of them for their thoughtful replies. Here are a few of those replies.

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Robert "Alan" Black
NSA, CSP Prof Member, speaker/consultant/trainer/author
Athens, Georgia Area

When I taught Fundamentals of Marketing courses for the American Management Association around the US at various AMA centers from 1984 to 1986 the book POSITIONING by Al Ries and Jack Trout had already been a best seller and Strategic Planning was also a popular selling topic; first to business and industry and then to governments and agencies.

You are asking about STRATEGIC POSITIONING in the era of BRANDING.

hmmmm?!

Strategic thinking....chosen thinking, deliberately chosen planning

Positioning....getting the mindset you want into the minds of your customers/clients/patients that you want them to have.

One of the problems of becoming too STRATEGIC and too specific about a POSITION is what do you do when the situation changes such as the past couple years with the international global financial disasters.

Do you change your strategy(ies)?

Do you change your position?

One of the lessons, I believe, I got from Ries & Trout is often POSITIONS or POSITIONING happens in the mind/s of customers/clients/patients even when you are trying to establish or create other Positions.

Then the question becomes HOW TO UN-POSITION OR RE-POSITION you, your products, your company or FINDING NEW CLIENTS/CUSTOMERS/PATIENTS OR NEW MARKETS.

hmmm?!

--------------------

Paul Weber
CEO Entrepreneur Advertising Group
Kansas City, Missouri Area


There is no better case study than Southwest Airlines. Both in strategic positioning and in brand positioning, they have been the only airline in 25 years that created a recognizable differentiation based on consumer preferences. Fast, friendly, fun, low fares....

These are always the words that describe consumers' experience with the airline. No other airline has ever had a recognizable position that was identifiable to the general public.

I am speaking from more of a marketing and brand perspective but I'm sure that their operational strategies ran similar. Southwest, without a doubt, one of the better examples of positive positioning against the competition.


------------------
Arun Prakash Maruthavanan
Principal Consultant at GETCXO
Chennai Area, India

Strategic positioning is the way you position your company, business model and offerings by analyzing your marketplace, rapidly changing environment, futuristic trends, competition, consumers and leveraging it to your advantage.

The strategic position of a business is its perceptual location relative to others. Awesome benefits like competitive edge,overall efficiency, early entry advantage, huge sales,brand loyalty and positioning; shall be reaped resulting in excellent growth of the business.

Unfortunately the majority of business are not making this conscious decision due to the lack of leadership, vision, market intelligence, professional support and their inability to accept, implement "Change".

The cost is directly proportional to the size of the business and the domain/marketplace in which it operates. A loss shall happen if this type of positioning is implemented in a wrong way resulting in a disaster.

I believe that the decision making capabilities of the business leadership plays a crucial role in the outcome of Strategic positioning.
-------------------


George Torok

Marketing Expert & Speaker

Executive Briefing for your Management Team

Strategic Positioning: What is it?

My new presentation on Strategic Positioning went very well. It was a workshop format for about 20 owners of medium sized businesses.


This was less about me speaking and teaching then it was about asking probing and disturbing questions. That type of presentation is always a little scary for me because I don't have the answers - only the questions.


The business owners realized that they must find the answers. That was an "ah-ha" moment.

Some of the issues and questions that we explored:

How to recognize the difference between acute and chronic problems and the connection to changing strategy or tactics.

Where are you now in terms of current strategy whether on purpose or by circumstance?

Five competitive forces that play with your strategy.

Identify your resources and how to leverage them.

How can you quickly generate a lot of creative ideas on demand?

What can you do in each of the four quadrants to develop new markets and products?

Some marketing strategies and tactics to consider.

This was a serious group of business owners yet we still had some laughs. I was impressed at the depth of discussion and exploration that we accomplished in this session. Of course no one-day workshop fixes anything, especially on the topic of Strategic Positioning - so everyone left with plenty of take-aways and homework for their business.

-----------------------------------

Comments from the business owners about this program on Strategic Positioning

"George takes complex business challenges and provides simple actionable tips to tackle them."

Kevin Hiebert, President, Cell-A-Net Printer Services

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"Invaluable perspective on leveraging business through effective marketing."

Bob Alsip, President, Convenience Group Inc.

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"Clear route map to establish a realistic strategy."

Paul Herman, President, Firwin

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"I enjoyed the presentation because it forced me to think of my business from a 10,000 foot view. I will use this opportunity to build a stronger company."

Chris Giles, President, Dyamic Connections

----------------------------

George Torok

Strategic Positioning

Executive Briefing for Business Owners

What do your best customers smell like?

7 critical things you should know about your customers


Smart marketing starts with asking the right questions and uncovering the answers that will help you build your business.

If information is power, how much do you know about your customers? Try this quiz.
1 Who are your three best customers?
2 Why do they do business with you?
3 What is their competitive edge?
4 What are their greatest challenges?
5 Who are their chief competitors?
6 What significant trends are impacting their industries?
7 What do your best customers have in common?


Marketing intelligence doesn’t need to be expensive. It can be as simple as asking your customers these questions and listening carefully to their responses.

1 Who are your best customers?
How do you define 'best'? Is it the one who paid you the most money this year, the one who has paid you the most over the last few years or the one who provides steady business, pays promptly and is easy to service? You decide.

You might need to create a few categories of best and deal with each differently. However you define best, establish your criteria then measure it regularly. Know who your best are and what they're doing. Treat them special. Stay informed and keep them informed. Stay in contact with them more often.

2 Why do they do business with you?
Stop patting yourself on the back and claiming that they are smart enough to pick you. Maybe that's true. But don't assume.

Forget surveys; ask them directly, over coffee or lunch, "Tell me why you selected my company as your supplier?" Follow up with, "I am always trying to improve my service, and I want to ensure I don't make the wrong changes. So if there is one thing that I should not change what is that?" You might be surprised by their answer.

3 What is their competitive edge?
Would you do business with your best customers? After you ask them why they do business with you, ask "Why do your best customers do business with you?" Watch their reaction at your interest in them. If you know their competitive edge then you can demonstrate how your company can help them with that important edge. You can also offer them ideas to help achieve and promote that edge. They will love you for it.

4 What are their greatest challenges?
Is it competition, staff, or finding time to relax? If they don't want to tell you then back off. Likely they will be only too happy to share their concerns with a trusted colleague. Listen and don't try to solve their problem unless that is your area of specialty.

Ask them how they are approaching this challenge. You will learn more about them in understanding how they think. You may be able to recommend a book, seminar, or associate who specializes in that challenge. Or you may be able to help them directly by adapting your service to help.

If you can help your customers with the ghosts that keep them awake at night, you will become invaluable.

5 Who are their chief competitors?
If you know whom they see as their chief competition you gain insight in to how they position themselves. Are they the market dominator or the underdog? Each will have entirely different corporate cultures, styles and needs. You will market to them differently.

You also need to decide if and how you will deal with the key competitors to your best customers. It will depend on the nature of your business and the level of trust and confidentiality needed to maintain good customer relationships. If you are tempted to sell to their competition remember that the surest way to create allies is to have a common enemy.

6 What significant trends are impacting their industries?
Be aware of threats to your customers' viability and discover new opportunities for your business. How is their industry changing? How will they do business in one, three and five years? And how will you fit into that?

If you are aware of these trends then more news about them will tend to grab your attention when you read the news or talk to others. You might clip and send your customer an article that talks about the trends. Your customer will appreciate your interest. When you market your product you might explain how it protects them from a negative trend or takes advantage of a positive trend.

7 What do your best customers have in common?
If you want more 'best customers' then know how to find them. Describe your best customers and post it on your office wall. It's like a wanted poster for good customers. If you know what you are looking for you are more likely to find it.

Think about how a hunter tracks their prey. They learn the habits, smells, likes and dislikes. You can do the same to find your big game. Here is a sampling of the information you might collect about your best customers; clubs and associations of which they are members, where they live, what they read, their education, special interests, sports and hobbies, recreation, demographics & ethno graphics, etc.

You can do two things with this information. Direct your marketing to these groups or places. It is like fishing. Discover where to catch the best fish and concentrate your efforts in those places. Find where you will catch the best customers and concentrate your marketing there.

Secondly, ask your best customers to refer you to others like them in their groups. We prefer to do business with others who are like us. These referrals have greater weight and it helps you catch the customers you want.

Sharpen your nose and happy hunting.
---------------------------------

© George Torok is co-author of the national bestseller, "Secrets of Power Marketing", the first guide to personal marketing for the non-marketer. To receive your free copy of “50 Power Marketing Ideas” visit http://www.PowerMarketing.ca To arrange for George Torok to speak at your conference visit http://www.Torok.com To arrange for a media interview call 905-335-1997

Starwood Sheraton Hotel Survey Sucks

This Starwood Sheraton Hotel Survey Sucks

Customer surveys are a good idea - but good ideas can be messed up by poor implementation. Here is an example of a customer survey that only served to annoy me as the customer of Sheraton Starwood Hotels.

The first rule of surveys is to be clear on your purpose. For example: are you conducting your customer survey to fix problems, discover opportunities, gather performance stats for marketing - or justify a manager's bonus?

The second rule of surveys is to see it from the customer's point of view.

After my stay at a Sheraton Hotel in Montreal I received the following request by email to complete a customer survey.

When you ask your customers to complete a survey - remember that they are doing it for you. So it would help your cause if you were warm, friendly, respectful and offered a reward for their time and perspective.

When I received the survey request from Sheraton Starwood Hotels - I deleted the first email because it seemed cold, demanding and all about them. And they offered me nothing as a reward for my time and opinion.

Then I received the second email as below. It was no warmer nor convincing to me. But this time I clicked and completed the survey - not because they did a better job of inviting me - but because I wanted to discover if it got any better. It did not. In my opinion, the Starwood Sheraton Hotel customer survey sucks.


----------------------------


Dear GEORGE TOROK,

We recently sent you an e-mail inviting you to participate in an on-line survey about your stay at at Le Centre Sheraton ending on May 5, 2009. If you have not yet completed the survey, I want to let you know it is not too late to participate. We would like to again take this opportunity to personally thank you for your continued patronage. As you may already know, Sheraton Hotels And Resorts is part of the Starwood Hotels & Resorts family of brands (Sheraton, Westin, Four Points by Sheraton, W Hotels, S t. Regis, The Luxury Collection, Le Meridien, Aloft and Element). As a Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) Preferred member, you are a highly valued guest and we appreciate your loyalty and feedback enormously.

---
Notice the tone of how this first paragraph starts, "We did something and you haven't completed your part." The thank you gets lost after they chastised me for "not yet completing". And then there are several lines about them - they list their hotel brands. Why? Would that convince me to complete their survey?
---

We would greatly appreciate it if you could take the time to complete a brief survey regarding your most recent stay. This is important to our company, hotels and our brands that use this information worldwide to continuously improve our guest's experience and, most importantly, how to meet and exceed your expectations in the future. TNS has been retained to conduct this survey on behalf of Starwood.

---
This paragraph is all about them. Why would I care? They still have placed no value on my time. They simply demand it.
---

At your convenience, please take some time to complete the survey. To complete the survey online, simply click on this link:xxxx or copy and paste the link into the address line of your browser. If you have any difficulty accessing the survey, please send an email message to starwood@tns-global.com.

The survey itself will take only about 10 minutes of your time. If you are being prompted for a validation code after clicking on the link, please copy and paste the following into the field:

---
Ten minutes of my time - that's all they want. Don't they realize that if I can afford to stay at a Sheraton or Starwood Hotel that I place a high value on my time?
---

By providing this information you authorize Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc., and its affiliated and subsidiary companies, (the "Starwood Group"): to collect, process and use the data provided for any lawful, Starwood Group business related purpose; to store the data at and transmit the data to various location(s), either directly or through its third party vendor(s), as the Starwood Group deems appropriate, throughout the world, whether within your country of residence, the United States, or elsewhere. To learn about our data collection and usage practices, please see our Privacy Statement:

---
The lawyers got to have their say to earn their pay.
---

We appreciate your business and thank you for staying at a Starwood hotel. We hope that you will visit other Starwood hotels and resorts in the near future.

---
About time that they thanked me. Where's my prize? If they really appreciated me and my business they could demonstrate that with a gift.
---

Sincerely,
Denise Coll
President,
North America Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide


---
So how do I get my 10 minutes of the president's time? She implied that ten minutes of my time was worth nothing.

It;s been at least a week since I "completed" the Starwood Hotel Survey and I have not received a thank you, acknowledgement or offer of a reward.

The service at the Sheraton was pretty good with a couple exceptions and the Starwood customer service survey sucks.

---

George Torok

How to Market in a Downturn

How to Market in a Downturn
Harvard Business Review

by John A. Quelch and Katherine E. Jocz

In this intriuging article the authors examine the reaction of consumers by their mindset. What a welcome change from the many analysts who only look at demographics and income level. It is mindset that is more important in understanding and predicting the action of people.
---------------

In every recession marketers find themselves in poorly charted waters because no two downturns are exactly alike. However, in studying the marketing successes and failures of dozens of companies as they’ve navigated recessions from the 1970s onward, we’ve identified patterns in consumers’ behavior and firms’ strategies that either propel or undermine performance. Companies need to understand the evolving consumption patterns and fine-tune their strategies accordingly.

During recessions, of course, consumers set stricter priorities and reduce their spending. As sales start to drop, businesses typically cut costs, reduce prices, and postpone new investments. Marketing expenditures in areas from communications to research are often slashed across the board—but such indiscriminate cost cutting is a mistake.

Although it’s wise to contain costs, failing to support brands or examine core customers’ changing needs can jeopardize performance over the long term. Companies that put customer needs under the microscope, take a scalpel rather than a cleaver to the marketing budget, and nimbly adjust strategies, tactics, and product offerings in response to shifting demand are more likely than others to flourish both during and after a recession.

Understanding Recession Psychology
In frothy periods of national prosperity, marketers may forget that rising sales aren’t caused by clever advertising and appealing products alone. Purchases depend on consumers’ having disposable income, feeling confident about their future, trusting in business and the economy, and embracing lifestyles and values that encourage consumption.

But by all accounts, this recession is the severest since the Great Depression. The wave of bad economic news is eroding confidence and buying power, driving consumers to adjust their behavior in fundamental and perhaps permanent ways. They now realize that spending in much of Europe and the United States over the past two to three decades was built on a quicksand of debt and dwindling savings and home equity. Marketers abetted consumers in defining the good life in material terms and urging them to live beyond their means. In the ensuing meltdown, consumers face piles of bills, stagnant or falling incomes, and shrinking nest eggs. At the same time, a series of corporate scandals; failures in the financial, housing, and insurance sectors; and taxpayer bailouts of mismanaged businesses have fostered consumer distrust and skepticism of marketers’ messages. It’s no surprise that in January 2009 the Conference Board’s U.S. Consumer Confidence Index sank to the lowest level since tracking started in 1967.

Read the rest of this article at Harvard Business Review

-----------------------------

George Torok

Marketing Expert & Author

Personal Marketing

Marketing: Don't make the same mistakes I did

Don't make the same mistakes that I made!

I started and chased several business ideas in my early days. Some did well and some failed. None did great. Why - because I did not fully understand the power of following a simple and effective marketing system. I didn't have a mentor. No one taught me the secrets of marketing. I didn't have a role model. But I knew that there had to be an easier, better way to succeed in business.

So I started reading all the business books I could find. I read hundreds of books, attended seminars, listened to tapes and watched videos. I even registered for a college marketing course - but dropped out because it was boring and impractical. As I gathered all this information I discovered there was a lot of useless information out there. The gems that I found I recorded, tried, analyzed and simplified. I started to develop my system of power marketing.

I used this new system when I launched my business a decade ago. I hit the ground running. Wow - were things different this time! Sales growth. Profit growth - and it was fun.

Then I met Peter Urs Bender - he was more experienced in the business. We discovered that we had gone through similar learning experiences. And again it was his simple system of marketing that built his success.

We compared notes and discovered common principles and techniques. We also shared our marketing horror stories - the dumb mistakes we had made. Perhaps if you had enough time and money you could suffer the same mistakes.

But why waste your time, money and the embarrassment?

We put the best of what we learned into Secrets of Power Marketing. We kept it simple, practical and effective - because that's the way we prefer to work.

George Torok

Co-author of Secrets of Power Marketing

Marketing Expert

Marketing Speaker

Spy on the competition

Spy on your competition with - SpyFu - https://www.spyfu.com/

The heck with marketing research when you can spy on them.

If information is power - this is a must have tool for the internet marketer. It helps you spy on your competition regarding their search engine strategy and reports back real numbers. Amazing stuff. Read what they say about their product.

------------------------
SpyFu lets you see which keywords your competitors are buying and which ones they optimize their site for. Once you understand the competition, you can beat them at their own game or your can exploit their weaknesses.

We get our data directly from the source; there are no middlemen. Every month, we extract 125 million ads and search results directly...
------------------------
https://www.spyfu.com/

You can try it for free.


George Torok

Marketing Speaker

Google - King of Internet Marketing

Google - King of Internet Marketing

No question! Google is King of marketing on the Internet. If you want to be found you better be found in Google. That includes both pay for click and search engine optimization.

Start your year by Googling all the words and phrases that might be important to your business.

For example those words might include:

Your name
Your product names
The generic name for your product
The pain or problem that your product fixes
Your trade marks
Your slogan
Your competitors’ names
Your competitor’s product names
Your competitors’ trade marks
Misspellings of the above
Your industry + the word “expert”
Your industry + the name of your city or geographic area of business
The names of your best clients
The names of your key suppliers

Study the results and look for patterns, insights and opportunities.

Google is the King of Internet Marketing – but Google is also a servant King. Ask the right questions and it will answer. But first you got to ask and then listen.



George Torok

Marketing Expert

Personal Marketing

Marketing Speaker for Conferences

Complaint Procedure

Complaint Procedure

One revealing way to test your marketing is to test your complaint procedure. Marketing is supposed to send messages about who you are and what you represent. Marketing is more than just listing your products. Marketing conveys your values, style and substance.

One way to test your values is to test your complaint process. Do you have one? Is it easy for customers to use? Do you hear and listen to your customers’ complaints? How do you act on them? That says a lot about your values.

Investigate how easy or difficult it is to complain to your company.

Do you treat complaints as valuable market research?
How do you encourage customer complaints?
How do you reward customer complaints?

George Torok

Marketing Specialist

Host of Business in Motion

Flick Off: Powerful Viral Marketing

Flick off!

How do you create a powerful viral marketing campaign?

Clearly identify and know your target market.
Really know them – what they do, where they go, how they think, what motivates them, how to grab their attention and how to speak their language. (How much of that do you know about your target market?)

That’s a lot of research and most marketers can’t be bothered and most business owners don’t want to invest the money to do that. But when you do the success of your marketing efforts is almost guaranteed. (Sun Tse, the ancient Chinese philosopher said “All battles are won before they are fought.)

So if your market was teens and 20-somethings, how would you approach them?


Be clear on your message.
You want them to reduce energy usage. You want them to start by turning off lights. Long term you want them to become more environmentally aware and responsible.

Simple message but tough sell.


Be clear on the motivation.
We have ten years before global warming becomes disastrous.

Yeah, yeah, we’ve heard it all before: how can I make a difference?


Create a memorable slogan.
Flick off. Wait a minute. Doesn’t that look and sound a lot like f…. off?

Yes, it does and that is the brilliance in the slogan. Flick off is a harmless yet suggestive phrase that could become a new catch phrase – the secret of viral marketing. Flick off speaks the language of this target group. It is memorable. It is provocative – the best way to be both viral and memorable.

Flick off is powerful branding because it is controversial, and a good brand fans the flames of controversy. Read earlier posts about branding principles and the example of Death Cigarettes.


Pick strategic partners.
So if your market is teens and 20-somethings, who do you think would make great business partners? How about Virgin Mobile, (Sir Richard Branson), Roots and Much Music?

Richard Branson becomes the celebrity spokesperson, Roots sells T shirts emblazoned with the edgy slogan and Much Music TV personalities trumpet the message.

Flick off you say?

Yeah, hard to imagine. But that would be a powerful marketing campaign. Well, it is real and it was launched this week in Canada. Imagine that - a bold new marketing campaign to help our dear planet earth started here in Canada. Only in Canada you say - pity!

Flick off. It’s official. The marketing campaign to save us from Global Warming is alive and well in Canada.

The partners in this program are Virgin Mobile, MuchMusic, Roots, Environmental Defence and the province of Ontario. (My kudos to the provincial government for their willingness to invest in such a bold and controversial program.)


Flick Off Summary
For teens and 20-somethings, Flick off, be more energy-responsible.
For older folks bothered by the language – get real and think about the big picture.
For business owners and marketers - a practical marketing lesson.


Sounds like a win all around. Please flick off.


George Torok
Power Marketing

Ask for Feedback

Do you ask for feedback from your customers?

What do you do when you receive feedback that you don’t like?

Do you defend?

Do you discount?

Or do you say, ‘Thank you for your feedback’?

You don’t need to change your business every time you receive negative feedback. However, you should consider what you hear. And you must thank your customers for their input. And thanking is not the same as agreeing.

Ask for and acknowledge customer feedback.


George Torok
Power Marketing

Branding: Death Cigarettes

I heard the best yet “How to create your Brand” story on this podcast with UK entrepreneur BJ Cunnigham.

BJ created a company called The Enlightened Tobacco Company in 1991, selling a cigarette called “Death Cigarettes”. It was presented in a black package emblazoned with a white skull-and-crossbones logo. Just imagine how this might appeal to the rebels.

His premise was to take a position that none of the other cigarette companies was taking. Great advice - and at the time all the tobacco companies were denying any ill effects of smoking tobacco. The branding in the cigarette business was all about life style - cowboy, sophisticate, artist, debutante - imaginary stuff, and all lies.

So why not be different from the crowd and admit the truth. Come on – smokers today know that tobacco smoking is bad for you. Tell a smoker that cigarettes can kill you and they will tell you, “Hey, it’s my life.”

So here are the words of ‘branding brilliance’ that resonated with me.

There are two ways you can create a brand - either with oodles of money or creative positioning.

Nike does it with oodles of money.

Death Cigarettes did it with creative positioning as Cunningham explained in his three rules:

1. Take a polarized position.
2. Make enemies.
3. Create tension.

Examine your position. How creative is it? If you have oodles of money like Nike then spend it on your brand. Otherwise, the only way you will build your brand is by creative positioning.

Take a position away from the crowd. Stand where no one else is standing.

Be bold. Be prepared to disagree with the status quo and make enemies along the way. Pick your market and be willing to annoy others.

Create tension. Make people choose. Create a controversy. Coke or Pepsi. Windows or Mac.

Who can you think of that has created their brand by following these three rules of creative brand positioning?

Harley Davidson jumps to mind immediately. People love them or hate them. That is powerful branding. Remember, branding is about creating powerful emotions.

Are you ready to create your brand?

If so, follow these three rules for creative brand positioning:

1. Take a polarized position.
2. Make enemies.
3. Create tension.

You will need to be bold. You will upset some - mainly your competition and those who never buy from you. Can you live with that?

Have you noticed that the strongest brands have lots of enemies?


George Torok
Power Marketing

Sears Catalogue

On Aug 14, I posted about the destructive marketing messages that people in your company might be sending. All the creative work of the “marketing department” can go ‘down the drain’ because of sloppy execution or poorly trained front line staff.

Then along comes Sears, providing a good example.

The Sears catalogue was delivered today. Where would you expect to find your Sears catalogue when you look out your front door in the morning? In the mail box? In the magazine rack? Perhaps laying on the mat? Maybe on the porch? Or at least close to your door?
All reasonable guesses and expectations.

I discovered the Sears catalogue at the far end of the drive by the street where I normally put my garbage for pickup. I know that’s how papers are delivered in rural areas – end of the driveway - but we are right in the city. It’s a short driveway – tough to fit two cars one behind the other. It is not a long walk to my front door from the street. Yet the Sears catalogue was dropped or thrown out of a car window on my driveway as though it were litter.

As I went for my morning run I noticed all the houses on my street and neighbouring streets had a Sears catalogue on the driveway by the edge of the road. Fortunately they were wrapped in plastic because it had rained. Most were probably dry inside the bag – assuming that householders would pick up the wet package, brush off the wet leaves and not throw it directly into the garbage.

Some packages were ripped open and the pages strewn across lawns.

Just imagine the time and money that went into the creation of that catalogue – plus the hopes of the CEO and VP sales. They probably patted themselves on the back for creating another colourful catalogue. The marketing department probably awarded themselves another trophy for their creative design.

So will anyone really know why sales are down during this next season?

Perhaps they’ll conclude that catalogues don’t work anymore.

Where the catalogue is placed is a small detail – and small details can sink your marketing campaign.

George Torok

Power Marketing

T-Shirts & Embossed Pens Can Out-Perform TV & Internet Ads

According to a study by Marketing Sherpa the $16.9 Billion Promo Products Industry is quietly raking in nearly three times more ad dollars than internet advertising.

Why is that? Their research shows that 76.1% of the consumers studied said they could remember the brand name of a company that gave them a promotional item in the past year -- versus 53% who could remember a TV or print ad from the past month, and even fewer recalled an online ad from the past week.
Promotional products are an old standby in our hungry-for-attention marketing world. Your name and logo on a golf shirt, coffee cup, or portfolio might get you more sales then spending the same money on Internet ads.

A friend of mine, Rick Maude, who owns a promotional products business, assures me that his business keeps growing. It seems that the race is on – to offer something new and different to put your logo on and get your message out there.

If it has been a while since you looked at putting your name on promotional products – view the online catalogue at http://adplus.promocan.com/

Marketing Sherpa, Inc. is a research firm publishing Case Studies, benchmark data, and how-to information for marketing, advertising, and public relations professionals.

You can visit their library of articles, reports and case studies at
http://library.marketingsherpa.com/search.cfm

You can view the summaries and some of the full articles free. They are, after all, a research firm. I do enjoy many of their case studies.

George Torok

I invite you to visit my recently revised site http://www.powermarketing.ca/