This is an elementary marketing rule. Ironically, many financial services advertisers continue to play variations of the same “unique” tune about superior customer service.  Admittedly, some ads are definitely more entertaining than others like this spot from ANZ in Australia.

But do customers actually believe service is a differentiator?  Where’s the beef? The fact that Canada Trust was open 8 till 8 put a huge stake in the ground and became emblematic of how a small trust company tries harder.

Service differentiation in many industries can be hugely disruptive. Porter has become famous for the way they treat travelers. While kudos to Porter for delivering on service it was not difficult to improve on the competition. Porter has done a superb job of branding the experience from check-in to boarding.

A brand is a promise kept. So don’t just tell customers you’re different – show them how you’re different and then tell them how you’re different.  Deliver on your promise over and over again.  This translates into superior customer service and a brand that is both talked about and trusted.

Toyota, Wall Street Bankers, Tiger Woods. I feel for you all. Who among us hasn’t cut a few corners to get a job done? Bet big and lost? Had sex with 11 porn stars and nightclub hostesses and pancake house waitresses?
Sure they’re all feeling really bad about what they’ve done. But how do you go about making amends for it all. Atoning for your deeds. Or at the very least, damage control. This is not a job for amateurs. I know because I heard it from the master.

In 2001, I met the devil. He was a friendly little Italian guy from Brooklyn in a gray suit. And he had been at every major corporate catastrophe in the past 30 years. He was in Bhopal when the Union Carbide spill created the worst industrial disaster in history. He was in Chicago when tampered with Tylenol packages killed 7 people. He worked with Jack-in-the-Box in 1993 when 2 people died and 400 were left ill from tainted meat. He was unseen and on the scene. The puppet master pulling the strings on the front lines. Although in his case, the front lines were a sumptuously decorated boardroom with really swell catering.

“Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name.” he said, introducing himself. Okay, he didn’t actually say this, but in my head that’s what I heard. I didn’t have to guess his name because his name was Gerry. He was with a major global PR firm. And he was the Fixer. And this was another disaster.

We were in the boardroom of a great big Auto manufacturer who’s sport utility vehicles had a recent disturbing habit of rolling over when a tire blew. The tire manufacturer blamed the automaker. The automaker blamed the tire manufacturer. And consumers just blamed them both.

Gerry’s experience around the planet with corporate disasters made him the go-to guy for crisis management. He knew what would happen, how the manufacturer would react. How the press would react. How the board of directors would react. And if they followed his directions, how to get out of this mess.

As he had predicted, the first thing management did was deny the problem existed and then turn turtle. That would simply not do, said Gerry.

He then gave the Auto Guys their marching orders. Here are some of Gerry’s main points:
LEAD THE STORY—the press will fill in the blanks of a story with the information that’s available. And they want that info right away. Today. Having that void filled with all kinds of conflicting information would be a very bad thing. The manufacturer must be the lead information source to show openness, progress, leadership and remorse for the event. And to not let the story get away from them.
LEAD WITH THE SCIENCE—Bring out the guys with the white smocks. Appoint a scientist/engineer or someone with expertise from the company who can be the point person for all information about how the event happened and what the company is doing to fix it.
LEAD WITH A LEADER—someone, most likely the company President, will be the point person for all info that will be generated from the company about what they are doing to move forward.

Pointers like this may be self evident to good PR people but few of them have lived the crisis from inside the bunker. And that’s what Gerry had done over and over.
At that time, the management of the auto company was kind of collectively traumatized. They don’t teach you in biz school how to deal with stuff like this. Gerry was just the kind of face slap they needed.
That auto manufacturer got through it. Those rollovers are now ancient history. And as Gerry had predicted, the CEO, after decades with the company, got the sack a few months later.

So what have we seen in the media so far? Toyota turned turtle and let the story get away from them. Had a quick fix solution and then they didn’t. Had all kinds of conflicting stories in the press. And finally, Akio Toyoda, President of Toyota and scion (pun intended) of the founding family has come forward and apologized. Although he’s only been President since June, he’s taking the hit. He described his company in rather strange biblical terms in they are “seeking salvation”. This may be too little, too late. U.S. Congress has “invited” Mr. Toyoda to come on down to Washington to “clarify the situation”. This is bad. The worst possible outcome is to have the government involved. Remember the tobacco guys?
As for Wall Street, there will be no mea culpas. I suppose, they really are too powerful. The closest we could get to a public apology was seeing MSNBC host and Wall Street head cheerleader Jim Cramer drawn, quartered, vivisected and disemboweled by Jon Stewart. Sure it felt good, but Jon wasn’t exactly picking on the big kids in the schoolyard.

And the there’s Tiger, the piano-toothed God of every cowpatch hacker on the planet. He decided to stonewall and the media just filled in the blanks with some of the wildest speculation imaginable. And that apology. That don’t know where to look it was so bad apology. The faux sincerity. The Dr. Drew therapeutic jingoism. It’s what supreme arrogance looks like when it’s forced to it’s reconstructed knees. Just about the only thing that could save Tiger’s reputation at this point would be to spend a decade washing the feet of lepers.

Or he could just accept the fact that the Tiger corporation is now closed for business. Forget the money. He could get back his amateur status and play for nothing. Play for the smell of fresh cut lawns amid the dewy haze of a summer morning. Play for the feel of a sweet pure stroke as that white ball bisects the fairway. Play just for the sheer love of the game.
Naaaaah.

Nothing cuts a gigantic wildly innovative market dominant software juggernaut down to size quite like presenting them as a cuddly incompetent dork.
And Microsoft still doesn’t appear, after all these years, to know how to deal with it.
Frankly, if I was up against a campaign this good, I wouldn’t know how to deal with it either. Their response still seems to be to just hope it goes away. Which to me, just makes it funnier.
Microsoft’s hugely expensive let’s bring in Jerry Seinfeld and Crispin Porter to go medieval on their collective Apple asses flamed out almost before it began.
And their current “I’m a PC” and I’m human and I’m interesting and I’m…trying way too hard, just doesn’t seem to be cutting it.
That’s how effective charm is.
But the charm also masks how incredibly brave this campaign is.
I have sat in endless brainstorming sessions where companies have clear benefits over the competition. The question inevitably will come up “why don’t we just show people how we’re better—you know, a side by side comparison.”
The client says “No. Why spend money to advertise the competition.”
The lawyer says “No. We’re opening ourselves up to litigation.”
The creative team says “No. It’s just so, y’know, old school.”
And if there’s anything that creative teams dislike more that being seen as unhip it’s being cute. Charm sits precariously on the borderline of the creative purgatory of Cute. Charm is a slippery slope. And no self-respecting creative person ever wants their work to be called Cute. Cute is kittens in baskets with yarn. Cute is babies in plant costumes. Creative people like to be funny and Cute isn’t funny. People will laugh at your Cute commercial, but it’ll be behind your back. Cute is creative death.
But Charm, as with all weapons, is incredibly effective when aimed accurately.
For example, what happens when Charm gets mixed together with wildly eccentric?
You get The Most Interesting Campaign Of The Year for The Most Interesting Man In The World. How interesting is he?

“His blood smells like cologne.”

“He lives vicariously through himself.”
“He once had an awkward moment just to see how it feels.”
“His reputation is expanding faster than the universe.”
“His beard alone has experienced more than a lesser man.”
“The police often question him just because they find him interesting.”
That’s the campaign for Dos Equis. And that’s the legend of The Man. We’re captivated. We’re entranced. And when he finally speaks to us in this TV commercial, does he go for a call to action? Does he extol the virtues of the beer? Not for him to stoop to such corporate stoogery.
“I don’t always drink beer, but when I do, I drink Dos Equis.”
Don’t always drink beer? In a beer commercial?
Now that’s a charmer
In an ad category of manscaped smugsters and beer-swilling bubbahs, The Most Interesting Man In The World uses wit as a weapon. Rather than celebrating the stupid and puerile, the appeal to the 12-year-old mind in an adult body, this advertising recognizes the fact that your voice has changed, you’ve got body hair and your testicles have descended. It’s a campaign for grown up men.
And the charming man gets the girl. Not the pull my finger guy.
Apple and Dos Equis. Charm rules.
So why aren’t there more charming campaigns? The most obvious reason is that they’re really really hard to do. They rely heavily on tone of voice, wit, style, incredible casting and great restraint. All elements that are hard for a lot of marketers to get their heads around. It all feels kind of touchy-feely in the hard-charging, media-neutral, results-oriented, innovate-or-die world of marketing today. And charming campaigns don’t test particularly well. So much is reliant on nuance. Sitting down 15 guys at $100 bucks a crack at a shopping mall on a snowy night in Regina virtually guarantees focus group suicide. Go ahead, ask them if they find it charming.
But when it’s done right. When all the precarious elements work together, charming campaigns are the ones that stand out, that really differentiate and captivate.
And boy do they work.
Like a, you know, charm.

You’re an easy target—Hard as it may be to believe, there are people out there that actually can’t stand advertising. They’re waiting for a gotcha moment so they can give a piece of their mind to the chairman. If you’re going to advertise, just accept that fact that some people are never going to like what you have to say, no matter how innocuously you say it.

You’re can’t hide advertising—Get this in your head: everybody sees everything. Just because you are advertising, say, Axe deodorant spray via the prurient interests of teenage boys doesn’t mean that someone won’t see an inherent contradiction with that and your other quite famous campaign, the Dove Campaign for real beauty. Same company with diametrically opposed views of the world. Somebody’s going to call you on it. Be prepared. It’s not the end of the world. The planet is full of contradictions.

HEADS UP! INCOMING!—No one likes to be caught flat-footed. Least of all heads of public corporations. They may not share your devil may care, c’est la vie, whoopsy attitude towards negative press. If there’s a possibility of controversy, have that conversation up front. Right to the top. Bring in the PR people and have a strategy to manage the potential issue. When Apple launched the Macintosh with their 1984 ad (I know I’m going back to the dark ages) a lot of people were horrified. But Steve Jobs expected and embraced the publicity, both negative and positive, that it engendered. They were ready for it. They had a vision of the bigger picture.

You are in the Persuasion business not the Entertainment business—You can watch TV all night and see an endless parade of corpses, deviant behavior, vulgarity and irreverence. And you may be tempted to think that great advertising should simply mirror the contemporary culture that most influences us. That’s what people like, right? That’s what audiences respond to, right? Yes, but…
Advertising for whatever reason is held to a much different standard than the programming that surrounds it. You just can’t go as far as what would easily be acceptable in an average comedy or drama show. Don’t ask me why this is. I don’t really know. It just is.

Great advertising IS polarizing—I truly believe if you create great advertising with a strong point of view, you’re going to piss somebody off. Any insight into the mind of a teenage boy brilliantly executed will, for example, offend some group of parents somewhere. Will you get letters? Likely. Will it create a strong brand among your target? Absolutely. I believe, you have to do what’s right for the business and go for it.
There is always risk in advertising. Risk and reward are what make advertising and business in general as exciting as it is. The only way to win is to embrace risk. The biggest risk of all is to spend all that money and have no one notice.
And that to me is blasphemy.

Absolutely amazing.

Beyond the Gateway Recession: What CEOs Will Face Next

From George F. Colony, CEO of Forrester research.

We’ll look back on this recession as much more than an ugly economic moment. History will view it as The Gateway — a portal connecting two very different eras.

When the economic clouds clear, many prevailing elites will have been swept away, organizational structures will have fallen, and many who were formerly in control will have lost power. Those who can speak digital will thrive, and those who cannot will finally get the message and retire.

The signs are everywhere. Post-Gateway players: Obama; Amazon; Zappos; Jet Blue; Twitter; Facebook; blogs; Craigslist; broadband; Wikipedia; DVRs and iTunes. Pre-Gateway: GM; the New York Times; the Republican party; shopping malls; print advertising; excessive executive pay; TV networks; boards of directors full of aging plutocrats; and the TV-centered Washington chattering classes. Like the US Civil War, which separated an agrarian society from an industrialized economy, or World War I — a death knell for many European elites — the Gateway Recession is exposing fundamental weaknesses in long-standing political, cultural, and economic institutions.

Here are the new challenges and rules that await CEOs on the other side of that door:

1. Digital will be mandatory, not a choice. Pre-digital CEOs could get away with IT/BT (information technology/business technology) ignorance. No longer. Tech will be key to how you sell, connect to customers, become more efficient, and lower costs. Why is Amazon so powerful? Because it combines two old-world attributes, great customer service, and superb execution with a critical post-Gateway attribute — digital. In the new world, CEOs of all stripes will have to have it all, in the mode of Amazon.
2. Brand loyalty will be limited. For five years, Forrester has been tracking the precipitous decline in brand loyalty — particularly for complex products like cars. Brands will afford only limited protection for your company in the new world — because choice has been radically expanded. All brands are subject to consumer testing, discussion, disclosure, and transparency. You can no longer own your customer — your customer will own you.
3. Customers will look very unfamiliar. They will learn, play, work, and live differently than you or the customers you studied in business school. In the US, 18- to 27-year-olds spend 30% less time reading magazines and newspapers than 28- to 40-year-olds. They spend twice as much time playing digital games, 53% more time on cell phones, and twice the amount of time on social sites like Facebook. You may not like it, and you may not understand it, but your customer is being changed by technology — and your customer will change your company.
4. The war for people will be intense. It’s a counterintuitive thought at this moment of high worldwide unemployment, but the post-Gateway era will be distinguished by a pitched battle for good people. Basic demographics are at work — in the next eight years 35% of nurses and 40% of federal government workers will retire in the US. Already-low fertility rates in Europe will continue to fall. Yes, the baby boomers’ kids will fill the gap but not for another 20 years. CEOs will fight for people on three fronts: 1) Attracting and winning the best and the brightest takes world-class offices and factories, the best internal technology, and truly compelling corporate purpose and values; 2) retaining the best workers takes a great corporate strategy, excellent leadership, and inspiring management; and finally 3) getting productivity from the limited workforce you have — again, this loops back to nailing the technology imperative.
5. You will sell differently. You used to advertise in the local newspaper, BusinessWeek, CNN, Le Monde, or the Wall Street Journal. Many of these channels won’t survive in the new era — because the new consumer won’t pick them up or tune them in. You will have to reach customers in new ways — blogs, Facebook, Google, Twitter, and whatever supersedes them.
6. The way you innovated is dead. The era of black-box innovation has passed. Look to P&G for the new model. CEO A.G. Lafley searches for product ideas all over the world — competitors, customers, China, and India — then partners to bring the new innovation to market. The biggest change will be the involvement of customers in building your products — a concept that I call “social sigma” (with apologies to Six Sigma). The idea is that the customer, through social technologies, will spec the new product — that the customer will be an active participant in broad aspects of product development.

The forces of the recession will trigger many of these changes. But the end of the Gateway Recession will also usher in a new technology era. Tech and the Internet have been around for decades, so why is their impact felt post-recession? Because while technology changes quickly, people don’t. It has taken 15 years of cultural fermentation, generational transitions, and habit breaking for society to catch up to what technology can do. Pre-Gateway, society wasn’t ready. Post-Gateway, technology and human behavior will align to create a powerful brew.

Elites will die, but new ones will take their place. The Sulzbergers will fade from view, but the Brins and the Bezos will fill the void. New companies (and therefore new elites) will aggregate around three areas: 1) new healthcare; 2) new forms of energy; and 3) technology. As CEO, you’ll have to drop your connections to the dying elites and figure out how to form connections with the emerging ones.

Source: The Reputation Institute

You might think that product performance outweighs everything else. Yet according to this research good governance is top of mind for consumers when judging the reputation of companies with whom they do business or trust their money.

Although the recession of 2009 has brought massive losses in corporate market value, the erosion of trust and strained relationships with employees and customers could ultimately be more damaging for business. Markets have become increasingly commoditized and consumer dialogue about corporate ethics becomes more dynamic as it spills from blogs to facebook to forums.

This means that corporate brands must connect with consumers on a deeper, emotional level. Consumer confidence and loyalty must be earned not just on performance but by everything you say and do.

Consumers are speaking directly to the corner office – it will be interesting to see which companies are listening.

Being liked is one way to build reputation in a commoditized industry.

In 2008 E*Trade featured a baby as a hero in their ads, suggesting the idea, “If I can do it, you can do it”. That first ad generated so much buzz that it became the start of a series of “talking baby” ads.

The marketplace in which E*TRADE operates is anything but child’s play.  E*TRADE also offers banking services, which puts it in direct competition with giants in the banking industry. Because of the banking operation, E*TRADE suffered losses on its subprime mortgage holdings.

Yet E*TRADE has been rated the “#1 online broker for the third straight year,” as determined by Smart Money magazine. And the company had a net gain of 115,000 new brokerage accounts in 2009.

Do clichéd images of confused people generate confidence and trust in a bank? Simply reminding consumers of what they need from a bank doesn’t build meaningful relationships. At the least, consumers expect competitive rates and excellent customer-service.  Consumers already want to do better with their money. Instead, they need to hear how you can be doing better with their money and ultimately, why they would trust you with their money. Before spending money on look alike advertising, financial services firms should consider how they can build trust while differentiating themselves.

There are brand police everywhere. Even though this ad pokes fun at the obvious hypocrisy of Ally bank, there is something to say for being forthright and honest.  When your corporate claim is doing the right thing eventually you’re going to be outed so you might as well out yourself.

When customers, clients or advisors invest their money with you they are expressing their trust in your company. Unfortunately, few financial institutions have provided a clear and compelling argument for why they should be trusted. Your ability to attract assets is directly related to how people feel about you as a company as much as they may be attracted to the past performance of your investment products.

Recently a report in the NY Times sheds some light on the relationship of trust to your bottom line.  Forrester’s annual Customer Advocacy rankings, ranks nearly 50 financial services firms in the United States by the percentage of each firm’s customers who agree with the statement: “My financial provider does what’s best for me, not just its own bottom line.”

So if trust in your brand is so important to your bottom line, why is that Banks are routinely ranked lowest in terms of customer advocacy or trust. The bottom seven of this year’s rankings, first to last, are Bank of America, Chase, Capital One, TD/Commerce, Fifth Third, Citibank, and in last place, HSBC.

“Customers feel banks are preoccupied with their bottom line. They are public institutions who are in business to make money for their shareholder and inevitably, that shows to customers,” Forrester vice president, Bill Doyle said.

Customer advocacy/trust rankings are a predictor of customer retention and attrition, and customers who rate their financial institution high are more likely to consider their firm for additional products. In contrast, customers who give their banks a low ranking are most likely to switch in the next year and are “going to be reluctant to put any more money and open new accounts at those institutions,” Mr. Doyle said.

Every financial services firm should consider how they can build trust in their brand and not rely on flogging historical investment returns or low introductory rates. These are not the way to build a sustainable competitive advantage. Doing the right thing for your customer, your employees and society is essential. And effectively communicating your values to customers, clients and advisors will make a huge difference in growth, retention and your bottom line.

The TD Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup has now grown into the second largest cleanup in the world, powered by Canadians, this program allows people from all regions and all walks of life to make a positive difference to their environment. Last year alone, over 63,000 Canadians registered for the TD Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup.

For better or for worse North America’s economy is a consumer driven economy. And that means that jobs in retail, service and (still) manufacturing are dependent on advertising to stimulate consumer spending for Coke, condominiums, cars or snow blowers.

Traditionally, advertising has been a driver of consumer demand. Blamed for making needs out of wants, advertising, the art of persuasion, has helped create the consumer-driven economy.

If you believe that advertising is persuasion and that persuasion generates economic activity, it comes as no surprise that advertising spending and economic declines are congruent:

Global advertising spend is expected to drop 5.5 percent in 2009, more than previously thought, before a mild recovery begins in 2010, according to a new forecast. (Reuters, June 2009). 

Clearly nobody needs a Lexus but advertising has created a viable luxury brand. The first Lexus to be made outside Japan was built in Ontario. Lexus sales mean more jobs for Canadians.

Apparently I’m dying, in constant pain, infertile, incontinent, undersexed and over pollinated.

According to the diagnosis of the marketing industry, I don’t have long to live.

So let me get this out in a hurry.

You guys are some seriously confused puppies. All these pathetic, alienating portrayals of the collective Boomer group will not serve you well. We’re either the butt of the jokes or ignored all together. And as for this endless fascination with youth, well, you guys have got to grow up.

Why?

Let’s start with this delusional pursuit of youth. Last time I checked, the purpose of marketing was to get the largest amount of money from the largest number of people as frequently as possible. Those under 30 years olds are the most susceptible to the vicissitudes of this recession. They have the highest jobless rate. They have the lowest discretionary income. And they are understandably hoarding what little they have left.

And the Boomers?

We’ve got the money. Baby Boomers control some 70% of disposable income. And we still comprise about 40% of the population. Based on U.S. data “50+ consumers earn $2 trillion annually, have 2.5 the discretionary spending power of any other group and by 2010 will be responsible for over half of all consumer spending in America.”

We’ve paid off their mortgages. There are no more daycare bills. In fact, the kids are out of the house and we’ve got cash burning a hole in our Hugo Boss jeans.

But of course, conventional wisdom goes, we’re not going to spend it on your product. Boomers have made their choices. We’ve chosen the brands we’ll stick to for life. Everyone knows that. So why spend money getting us to change when we never will?

Wrong again.

A recent Roper ASW study shows that consumer’s in their 20’s and 30’s are actually more averse to trying new brands than those in their 50’s. Give us better quality. Give us something more interesting and we’ll effortlessly change brands. Boomers are the original experimenters. Remember President’s Choice? This is the generation that rejected supermarket brands en masse in favor of better, more interesting Memories Of Dave Nichol offerings.

But at least we’re loyal to our cars. Nope. We went from American cars to Japanese cars to German cars and now Korean cars. The fact that more hybrid cars are sold to 50+ consumers proves that Boomers are as ready today for a new idea as they ever were.

“I’m a Pontiac Guy and always will be.” The guy said. Ok, who exactly is that guy? He no longer exists. Dead as Pontiac.

And we buy a lot of cars. Boomers are estimated to buy on average another 9 cars before we shuffle off this mortal coil. Look at our driveways. We even buy them 2 at a time.

You’ve got a target group that’s easy to reach: we still watch TV, we still read newspapers, we still listen to conventional radio. We spend a ton of time online and we’re easy to find there. We’re methodical in our decisions. We pay on time. And once more for effect—we’ve got the cash.

Who’s driving that new Lexus convertible? Who’s dining in the hottest restaurants? Who’s flying full fare to Europe? Who’s buying 3000 square foot condos. Who’s decked out like Lance Armstrong and riding that exotic $6,000 titanium/graphite alloy road bike? It’s the guy with the gray hair.

But, you CEO’s say, in 30 years they’ll all be dead and gone.

30 years? Really? REALLY? Dude, you’re just trying to make it through the next 2 fiscal quarters.

Granted, we’re in a recession now. Stock portfolios and RRSP’s have taken a major hit. The vast majority of those portfolios were held by Boomers. So we’re all a little bummed right now. But we know that money is coming back. How do we know?Because we’ve seen this before. And when it does come back, we will be the first ones spending. And spending big. You are going to see a spending spree of Russian mobster proportions.

And who are we going to spend our money with? The people that haven’t given a rat’s ass about us? The people that portray us as old-aged, doddering, hair-plugged, sad-ass, It’s-Patrick-and-he’s-bought-life-insurance doofuses? What do you think?

I’ll leave you with the wise words of the bewildered, frustrated man being carried to the Plague death wagon in Monty Python’s The Search for the Holy Grail. “Bring out your dead!” called the soldier pulling the wagon full of corpses.

“But I’m not dead yet!” said the older man as he’s tossed onto the pile by his callous stone-hearted son “I’m actually feeling much better!”

I’m actually feeling pretty good myself. I think I’ll go out and buy something.