when all else fails, try puppy eyes....

hi, folks .. it's me, willy the yellow lab, serving as your guest blogger today. my mom has been avoiding a ton of stuff and says she's too busy to bother with you, her loyal fans. i keep telling her seth godin and other marketing experts say this is a serious marketing error, and how can she ever expect to have more than 14 followers if this is how she behaves .... but now she's waving me off and telling me to get lost. i know that's impossible 'coz she put one of those damn GPS chips in my neck and now i can't even sneak out with my friends like a normal, self-respecting dog.



anyway, as you all know, my considerable expertise in marketing comes from watching hours of animal planet, and even more hours of sometimes good, sometimes bad, but always interesting human behavior. here are some things you may want to think about as you construct your next marketing program:



1) have a clear objective. and i don't mean something vague like "drive sales." to me, a clear objective is something very specific -- like, "get that piece of chicken shaped like a triangle."



2) have a clear strategy. a while back, my mom was pretty interested in a linkedin forum where some people didn't know the difference between objectives, strategies and tactics. to me (and her), strategies are pretty easy to discern from objectives and tactics. strategies are approaches, the general means by which objectives are accomplished. some people go right to tactics, which is a mistake because it doesn't allow you to fully consider all the alternatives that you have at your disposal when it comes to achievement of a goal. for example, in the case of the chicken triangle, my strategy is going to be to get her to give it to me willingly. there are a number of alternate approaches i could use, such as jumping up and nabbing it off the plate, or by creating a diversion ...by say, taking a leak on the sofa and subtly stealing the chicken while she races off to get the upholstery cleaner. those 2 latter strategies, however, are likely to get me a big doggy spanking, while the first approach is much easier and devoid of pain.



3) select appropriate tactics. now that i've decided on the "willing" strategy, i have to find specific actions that align. i have a huge arsenal of tools i can use, everything from double-barreled drool strands (my personal best: 8"!!) guaranteed to make a mess on the floor, to doing a little circle dance i know she loves ... or even telepathy, which hasn't yet actually worked but which i continue to pursue by staring fixedly at the chicken or whatever in hopes that my brain will actually compel movement of the food to my anxiously awaiting gullet. again, tactics like nabbing or barking or peeing are not well aligned with this strategy and so i won't pursue them. however ... puppy dog eyes are guaranteed to work in nearly every situation and in this case will be the primary, and quite possibly only, tactic required.



why puppy eyes work for dogs - and how they can work for you



here's the thing -- the most effective brand and marketing efforts are built on emotional connections, not on rational arguments. features, advantages and benefits -- all that stuff you learned about early in your career -- it's all still really important, but you've got to move on and understand this at a higher level. if FABs were all that mattered, all salt would be the same price (remember chemistry? all salt is NaCL. it's as much a commodity as any product i can think of, although my mom also likes to use toothpaste as an example.) next time you're at your local grocery, compare the price of morton's to the store brand.



anyway, i digress. the reason why puppy eyes work for dogs is that they inspire 2 very important emotions -- guilt and fear -- which most humans are completely inept at handling. when i fix her with that look, my mom feels guilty because she knows she blew off my walk today, yesterday or last october. it doesn't matter which date -- what matters is that she knows she doesn't do as much for me as she thinks she should (note, i didn't say as much as I think she should. i know i'm getting a pretty sweet deal, but that's for another post). the second emotion is fear --she's afraid that if she doesn't give me the chicken, i might eat something else outside that's not good for me and hurt myself. and then she'd have a giant vet bill, in addition to the guilt. not a good combo.



these emotions can work for you, too, especially if you're in cause marketing. i've seen this work brilliantly on my mom. when the local charities send their people around collecting door-to-door, she gives them money; when the people come collecting on a bitterly cold day, or in the rain, she gives them 2x whatever she usually gives them.



fear is a little trickier ... but still very effective. my mom has a friend who says fear is an essential element of ANY sale. the customer has to, deep down, somehow believe that whatever the other alternatives are aren't going to be as good, or deliver as much value, or be available under the same circumstances, as whatever it is you're offering. when mom finds our food on sale and isn't sure it'll still be available next time, woo wee! we get lots!!



so, when all else fails, try puppy eyes. (it works for me).

susan boyle and kaytee suet

unless you've been hiding under a giant rock for the last several days, you know about susan boyle and the close to 50 million downloads of the youtube video showcasing her performance on "Britain's Got Talent." she's been on larry king, she's been the subject of articles in the world's major newspapers, and certainly gotten her 15 minutes and more in the blogosphere, with more than 2700 posts a day last week.

most of the coverage that attempts to explain why the world is so taken with susan, i think, misses the mark. many of these stories flail into armchair psychoanalysis, such as peter bregman's: "Who among us does not move through life with the hidden sense, maybe even quiet desperation, that we are destined for more? That underneath our ordinary exterior lies an extraordinary soul? That given the right opportunity, the right stage, the right audience, we would shine as the stars we truly are?" or even the more straight-up commentaries about how an angelic voice emanating from a sort of frumpy exterior has unexpectedly provoked a debate about prejudice against the not so young and not so beautiful.

but i think the reason that we're captivated is much simpler, and it's actually the same reason that i am at this moment, in an equally odd turn of events, thrilled with Kaytee suet.



those of you who try to attract wild birds to your feeders know what i'm talking about. birds are notoriously fickle. you can put food out in the middle of winter when there's nothing else to eat, and if they don't like it, they won't eat it. (this concept is totally lost, by the way, on willy & hoover, who never met a foodstuff -- or even non-footstuffs -- they didn't like). anyway, we'd tried the gamut of designer-brand suets, some with cherries, or orange pieces, or nuts, or i don't know what else. they might as well have been laced with gold, and we'd sometimes spend upward of $6 or $8 on the stuff, only to have to dig it out of the stupid little box to try something else. so one day, out of spite, almost, we bought the kaytee product, which was about $1-something and -- thinking about susan here -- didn't really look the part, if you know what i mean.

but remarkably, the kaytee worked! along came the cardinals, bluejays, finches and the little blue buntings in droves, and they couldn't get enough of the stuff. i could not have been more ... and here's the point of this post ... more surprised and delighted. if you watch the entire clip of susan's performance, somewhere in the first minute or so, they cut to backstage where the field producers are, and one of them says to the camera, "you weren't expecting that, were you... no!," which is i think really what's driving the emotion around this.

the surprise comes from, i suppose, what some people see as the incongruity between her visage and her voice. i got over this a long time ago, however, when i first got a look at the album covers for rush, steely dan and some other incredible musicians who were not similarly gifted in looks. but then again, isn't this why even the cheapest concert tickets sometimes sell out? presumably, some people are there for the music, as well as (or even maybe for more than) the spectacle.

anyway, surprise and delight are absolutely key to customer engagement, retention and advocacy. good advertising and pr may get a horse to your bucket, but it won't keep him drinking, much less telling other horses about it. when we run into surprise and delight, 2 things happen: 1) we build an automatic positive relationship with the product/brand at that moment (not to say it can't be undone later, but that's for a different post); and 2) we are generally motivated to tell others about it, often in a highly proactive way. whether you're talking about susan or suet, the results are the same ... we need more of it, and quickly!