From the marketing trenches...

If a podcast falls in the forest...

Here's a great example of marketers latching onto the next big thing...just because it's the next big thing.

Motel 6 is now podcasting. Their VP of advertising puts it this way:

“The podcast format allows consumers an expanded focus on topics or personalities that are not covered in traditional media. It allows us an opportunity to communicate with our existing customers and potential customers in a fun, innovative way.”

Yeah, but, expanding on the topic of Motel 6? OK, podcasting may be cool and innovative, but, honestly, how many people are going to go out of their way to find a Motel 6 podcast and download it so they can listen to an "expanded" commercial? And, to make matters worse, they will have to go out of their way.

You won't find the podcast on the Motel 6 site. And if you click on the parent company's link (Accor North America), you won't find it there either. All of these pages, rightfully so, are dedicated to booking hotel rooms. So where is it? You have to go here to this particular page on the Accor site. And the only way you would know that is if you read the press release about the podcast.

Marketers, take heed the example before us. No matter how cool or new a medium is, that alone does not justify its use. But if you can't resist and must jump onto the latest bandwagon,  park it where people can see it...or at least where they can find it (in the rare event they decide to look for it).

 

Follow These Leaders.

30 leaders tell their secrets to success in this month's Business 2.0. If you don't have time to read the full magazine, it's summarized nicely in this cnn.com article.

There are some great nuggets such as:

On what all successful leaders share: Courage. You are trying to engender a passion and a desire to do something new. And new is scary. As a leader, you are putting your ass on the line to make it happen. So you should be scared. (Kevin Sharer, CEO, Amgen)

I listen, but shortly after, the second piece is to pull the trigger. I have all the input, and here is what we are going to do. People need closure on a decision. If you listen and then noodle on it, people get confused, and that's not effective leadership. (Terry Lundgren, CEO, Federated)

If you're not excited, how can you get others excited? People will know. It's like how kids and dogs can sense when people don't like them.  (Carol Bartz, CEO, Autodesk)

A Possible (Gaping) Hole In Your Brand Strategy.

 Simplicity of language is something most marketers "get" and, in fact, it's something in which they typically excel. That's not true of attorneys, however. You definitely wouldn't want your attorney to write your next brochure or print ad.

But there is an often overlooked piece of marketing and branding communication where we do just that: the contract. While contracts are more prevalent in the B2B world, they are also frequently found in the B2C space as well (think cell phones, car rentals, etc.)

The contract speaks volumes about a company's brand. Is this company easy to do business with, or do they hide behind jargon and legalese? Are they customer friendly? Are they trying to screw me? A brand can attempt to stand for a lot of things, but the contract can knock the train off of the rails very quickly. Suddenly, the customer's experience trumps the company's marketing.

Virgin Mobile's contract is one that lives up to its brand. The company touted this in a recent press release:

Tom Alexander, CEO of Virgin Mobile, said: “Virgin Mobile’s Pay Monthly contract is unique: we are the only network to be upfront about monthly costs and, by having challenged convention, we guarantee our customers won’t be unlucky at month 13. We’ll tell them when their contract’s up and cut their costs – we won’t make them pay for their phone twice.

Can you imagine any of the other carriers drawing this much attention to their contracts?

Here's the rub. Contracts written in plain English are just as binding as those written in unfriendly, hard to understand legalese.

Check out your company's contract and see what it says about your company...about your brand. Then get a dialog going with legal or whoever "owns" the contract in your company. It won't happen overnight, but when it does you'll be one step closer to truly living your brand.