Andrew Ferrier

For those who don’t keep up with such things, the American car industry is in big trouble. Detroit‘s sales have been declining for some time, hurt by high costs, and Japan is stepping in to take their place. Some Americans, of course, will only buy American, but many seem to be taking the more pragmatic approach. High gas prices and a preference for marketing big cars and vans among America’s car markers haven’t helped.

Chevy seems to be upping the ante with a controversial new advert for their Silverado truck – with an admittedly catchy tune (video; I’m not sure what Stephen Colbert has to do with it). A recent Slate podcast deconstructs this in detail; suffice to say that images of Katrina and Vietnam are hardly likely to avoid heated discussion. A slightly blunt and clumsy parody is already doing the rounds.

This is all particularly interesting at a time when alternatives to petrol-guzzling SUVs finally seem to be becoming viable. David (site down at the time of writing) recently discussed an In Business podcast that looked at the Tesla Roadster, the first electric car that seems to actually have both a realistic marketing and engineering story. Tesla claim a 135 mpg equivalent energy consumption and 0-60mph in 4 seconds: not a bad combination. The car is currently being marketed only in California due to EU regulatory problems (please, government, get out of the way of the entrepreneurs saving the world). But it looks like it might finally herald the start of a more sustainable future.

I don’t think it’s an unreasonable prediction to say that the car industry will be one to watch closely over the next decade.

Marketing doesn’t have to be subtle. I was recently sent a DVD from Lovefilm that contained a small complimentary bar of Green & Black‘s chocolate (5p at cost price?). Being the greedy man I am, I knew this bar wouldn’t be enough once I’d started it, but even the thought of eating it got me salivating. Cursing the marketers involved for being so cunning, I immediately hastened to Sainsbury’s to stock up (in my defence, I bought some other stuff too).

This is clear and obvious – they know what they want you to do, you know what they want you to do. But it still works, because the product is good – the ‘ad’ just acts as a reminder at the right time (when I’m settling down for the evening). Seth Godin talks about this notion a lot – having a good product and marketing it in the right context. See this presentation he gave at Google for more.

I find it entertaining when people state ‘Walmart wants…’, ‘Ford thinks…’, or ‘BT needs…’. It’s quite painfully obvious that corporations don’t have feelings or thoughts. What is true is that people within them do. I’ve thought for some time that one of greatest contributors to a corporation’s success is when the thoughts of its people are aligned. Unaligned thoughts are unlikely to be useful. Aligned thoughts can happen by accident (less likely) or because of good quality leadership (more likely), but in either case it’s important to recognise that they are still individual thoughts.

One of the reasons I like working for IBM is that it’s happy to allow me and my IBM colleagues to blog externally. Of course there are guidelines – obviously I can’t give away confidential information. It’s still a brave act for a company like IBM, however, and many others of equivalent size are rightly nervous about allowing the same – what happens if the PR and marketing folks lose control over companies’ images? This may or may not be a good thing, depending on your opinion of PR and marketing as disciplines, but it’s clear that there’s a risk of exposing non-alignment – people have different opinions, after all, right? Sure, yes, there’s that risk. However, although I hope our customers can see that IBMers are working together to produce good quality products and services for them, at least we have the reassurance that we’re being judged on our merits.

I’d encourage any other IBMers who aren’t already doing so to blog externally. You can find more information internally in the usual place (how’s that for keeping a secret, huh?).

Starbucks didn’t exactly get where they were by accident. I recently saw this sign in a branch on Gloucester Road (it says ‘Coffee Grounds for Your Garden’). Starbucks are giving away some of their waste coffee grounds for free. The cost of packaging is probably almost equal to the cost of disposal saved, plus it benefits their green credentials. It’s also another good reason to go to Starbucks rather than another coffee shop down the road.

This looks like a pretty clever marketing detail.

I’ve just finished reading Seth Godin‘s book All Marketers Are Liars (yes, I know I was reading something different a few days ago; I’ve got a short attention span). His book taught me a lot about marketing and convinced me it doesn’t have to be fake and cynical. But perhaps the most important personal lesson I’ve taken away is to understand worldviews better. One of Seth’s basic principles is that each person has a set of worldviews: marketing that doesn’t match them is rationalised away in our brains, even when that’s illogical. This has been demonstrated by psychologists many times, but irrational rationalisation (pun aware) makes people uncomfortable, so we don’t talk about it much. This is one of things that makes marketing to people hard: framing the message in terms of their worldview. I think this is just as important to understand in personal relationships (persuading) as it is in selling products (marketing). In fact, it seems that Godin would assert that the former is marketing too.