Mt. Olive

Maybe because Mt. Olive brand pickles come from North Carolina, it can be excused from believing much of what has been written about brand loyalty.

For example, an article in the July 1 issue of The New York Times quotes Marian Salzman, CMO of JWT and author of Next Now: Trends for the Future:

“Because everything is on a faster cycle, there’s no ability to ever be satiated,” said Ms. Salzman, who adds that consumers show little evidence of brand loyalty, moving quickly on to a new fad or product.

On the other hand, there’s ample evidence of utter ignorance about consumer habits in flyover land – at least based on Salzman. I doubt she grew in the Carolinas.

“In a pickle… which do you prefer? The big fat dill pickles. But honestly, ANY pickles as long as they are Mt. Olive Pickles.” That’s Karen’s determination of on her MySpace blog. (Anecdotal? Of course it’s anecdotal – the opposite of “next-now forecasting.”)

So: Mt. Olive Pickle Company formally organized itself in early 1926 with a group of investors who had to find another way to support local farmers after the original plan to sell brined cucumbers to other pickle manufacturers failed. Today, according to its website, it is the best-selling brand of pickles in the Southeastern US and the second biggest selling brand of pickles, peppers and relishes in America.

Kind of hard to believe, I know. It’s likely you’ve never heard of this brand. I know about it because there is a jar or two on our dinner table every evening: we shop at HEB here and Mt. Olive is heavily stocked at HEB. It’s the…pickles here….as well as hot pickled okra, peppers, lime-flavored dill strips…more that 250 SKUs in all.

What about…you know, Vlasik? Glad you asked. In a rigorous scientific survey of the Thursday Night Martini Gang – 15 respondents – twice as many said they bought Vlasic pickles than any other brand. Claussen and Heinz received three “buys” each. One mentioned she purchases Dixie Rose.

It’s a complicated category – pickles, peppers and relishes – with refrigerated and shelf-stable versions abounding. But Vlasic (with its classic Groucho Marx stork) is owned by Aurora Foods*, Claussen by Kraft Foods, and Heinz by…uh…Heinz – the original pickle empire-builder.

Still, Mt. Olive Pickle Company is an independent: apparently, America’s largest independent pickle-maker and hence an independent brand as well. Its stats (depending on where you can find them) make this pretty impressive for a company that still based in its hometown after 80 years.

Also, the brand is intimately tied to its hometown, Mt. Olive, NC; with more than 5,000 people a little bit north and east of Fayetteville. And a mighty fine town it is, apparently, which has grown with the pickle company. But not too much. There’s a yearly North Carolina Pickle Festival; a New Year’s Eve Pickle Drop that’s quite popular; and a Pickle Palooza Picnic each spring. The cohesion between brand and town may appear to be old-fashioned, but it’s a far cry from conglomerates’ relationships with their stakeholders.

Mt. Olive Pickle Company has had its run-ins with labor organizers the last few years; these conflicts appear to be resolved. This post isn’t up to the four-score of years’ worth of company history that the brand deserves. But I sure to like the thought of a brand that gives back so obviously to its community – every time I open a jar.

Two final notes. No store-bought brand of pickle is worthy in Boston, apparently. According this article from The Boston Globe, Katie Johnston Chase ran a tasting contest: “Claussen was unenthusiastically voted the winner, and a few of the selections seemed downright revolting.” I’m not kidding: read the sour reviews for yourself.

Turn the other cheek (to stuff a pickle in it): “I eat these because they're good enough and for North Carolina state pride,” blogger Rob Matthews says here. Another anecdote…or a data point?

*Be certain to read some of the material Rob Schoenbeck assembled in the first comment to this post – just click on the word.

Technosurround Hell?

In “Dyepot,” a blog out of Portland, OR, the writer mentions the word technosurround, another neologism from Kim Stanley Robinson (see here). In the blogger’s notes, she explains Robinson’s view that “…This can be overwhelming: too much is like being high or in a shaman-state all the time.”

I ran across the word again myself while I was reading the book and Googled it up. “Dyepot” was the only place it turned up as a single word.

Like Robinson’s previous idea, it struck me there’s a marketing implication in the concept of technosurround – from several directions.

Like one of Robinson’s inspirations, the idea of a world-encompassing, omnipresent advertising presence comes from the novels of Phillip Dick, best expressed on the screen in movies such as “Bladerunner” (1982) and “Minority Report” (2002). Writer Michael Stroud wrote in Wired that in one of the movie’s scenes, fugitive John Anderton (Tom Cruise) is accosted by an interactive video advertisement on a wall: “John Anderton, you could use a Guinness right now.”

The film’s production designer, Alex McDowell, is quoted in Stroud’s article: “There’s a logical progression from the way the Internet works now to more enveloping, environmental advertising that’s networked.” McDowell is describing the growing use of increasingly personalized ads – currently blooming on our Internet.

We’re building the technosurround now. This past Thursday, the Houston chapter of the Business Marketing Association brought the current iteration of the Online Marketing Summit to town. It was well-attended and lively.

One thing was very clear: the Internet is its own industry, like the energy industry and the healthcare industry – and it has its own fairly focused agenda. It’s in the Internet industry’s interest to maximally increase everyone’s involvement with the Worldwide Web.

It means that “web marketers” have become this decade’s version of TV network marketers, and radio network marketers before that: give us all your money and we’ll make sure people pay more attention to your product or your service.

Unlike the technosurrounds previously established by other forms of mass media, the new version is personally interactive, like the cell phone you’re carrying around with you right now – and don’t you wish it was an iPhone?

Danger, Will Robinson: The “Minority Report” theme is that the technosurround eventually captures and tracks each and every one of us – to the detriment of freedom and liberty (two quite different concepts, actually).

The blessing is “social media” and the ability it gives us to rage against the machine, if we’re so inclined. Just like this blog, or even more provocative blogs and other forms of interactive communication. Just remember that if China can control the Web content that its population can access, so can America.

I’m torn. On the one hand, I welcome the integration of social media with Web marketing…it’s a powerful way to enact the Stakeholder Rule© on behalf of companies and institutions. On the other hand, I absolutely, positively do not want Amazon (for example) to be all that familiar with my reading habits or any of my other idiosyncracies. Technosurround be damned.

“Richard Laurence Baron, you could use a Guinness right now.”

Above, a futuristic Reebok ad from “Minority Report.” “Stakeholder Rule” © Richard Laurence Baron. All rights reserved.

Show Turn

To keep building the brand, keep your brand look consistent: thus sayeth the rule. So when you want something different in the way of a tradeshow handout, you build on elements that already exist in a client’s brand look and architecture.

Wood Group Gas Turbine Services has just such a new brand look, recently instituted under the guidance of its managers.

Prism Design and I share the concept creation and execution honors. It began with a new theme line, KEEP ON TURNING, and has continued with a clean, crisp design, four colored versions of the planet Earth, and the use of “global” photographs which portray the worldwide extent of Gas Turbine Services’ business.

The new print look is consistent with the overall Wood Group branding strategy while reinforcing customer benefits in a marketscape that spans so broad a category as “rotating equipment.” That’s turbines for the less well informed. On the Prism side, design honors go to Susan Reeves, Terry Teutsch, Stacy Allen and Miss Anne Stovall. It is applied initially to a new brochure, datasheets and advertising.

Our clients then challenged us to come up with something different in the way of a handout, a theoretically simplified version of the larger suite of materials. Along the way, Teutsch (Prism’s design director) came up with…well, a turn on the brand’s KEEP ON TURNING foundation: the idea we call “Paper Globe.”

Forgive my enthusiasm – it’s turned out very well indeed. The three-dimensionalized realization (whew!) of the brand concept is specially printed and die-cut so it fits into an engineer’s shirt pocket. It perfectly mirrors the Gas Turbine Services brand look, delivers critical information in an unforgettable fashion, and serves as a display piece as well.

The design and the execution are the results of a lot of tradeshow experience: an exhibition piece should transcend the informational and achieve the memorable. In addition to “continuing the campaign,” Wood Group Gas Turbine Services’ Paper Globe is more than a show turn – it’s a show stopper (if I say so myself).

Thanks to Wood Group Gas Turbine Services for
the opportunity to produce such outstanding work.

Nonlinear Tipping

You can call it the “Law of Unintended Consequences” if you like. I prefer to think of certain situations as nonlinear tipping points. This phrase comes from Fifty Degrees Below by Kim Stanley Robinson – he’s referring in this particular novel to the idea that a major global climate shift can happen in as little as three years:

It was such a radical notion that it had forced climatologists to acknowledge that there must be nonlinear tipping points in the global climate, leading to general acceptance of what was really a new concept…abrupt climate change.

Now apply this concept to marketing. Two examples come immediately to mind.

Who would have expected (or anticipated) that Enron would collapse so suddenly – and take an entire multi-billion-dollar natural gas marketing industry with it? With hindsight, Enron-watchers could, in fact, reconstruct the snarky deals which would bring the company down…so this part reflects 20/20 hindsight. But to topple a complete industry? I think this makes it nonlinear.

Who would have expected that Wal-Mart’s hiring of advertising chief Julie Roehm from Chrysler in February 2006 would lead to such a massive, indeed radical change in the major retailer’s relationships with its stakeholders? In fact, Roehm says in this article, “I was hired by Wal-Mart as a change agent a little less than a year ago.” So the objective was clear (in her view) from the outset; it’s this progress of events that led Wal-Mart to a non-linear tipping point.

So (according to this argument), abrupt changes in the marketscape can happen quickly – as with the Aqua Teen Hunger Force “guerilla marketing” campaign’s unusual effects on Boston…ultimately silly in this case.

But I wonder if there are other nonlinear tipping events in progress right now: ones that we’ll recognize only in hindsight. Or when something blows up in a marketer’s face.

Photo © Destonian, Dreamstime.com

CoVi Technologies

So many videos have been posted on YouTube, you might not have seen the one captured by a garage surveillance camera. Click on the link - watch the clip. It’s funny, a slice of life that could happen anywhere, anytime – and get captured on a security-cam.

For a security team, though, it’s far from perfect. You can’t really make out the faces of the couple in the clutch or the license plates on the cars. The images are blurry and indistinct (for which I’m sure our young lovers are eternally grateful).

Enter CoVi Technologies and the world’s only high-definition video surveillance system – aside from those of the US National Security Agency. Most conventional systems installed today record and display video with less than perfect clarity. CoVi is the first company to offer the highest quality standard at every point of contact, from initial image capture to access, storage and management – anytime, anywhere. Picture-perfect – you can see the differences on the company’s website.

The challenge, for CoVi, has been to create a coherent selling message and brand architecture that are as clear and focused as its cutting-edge technology. Which is where the Austin-based designer Gayle Smith and I came in.

Honestly, the joy of working with a client on a new brochure is as much in the crafting of the message (verbally and graphically) as in the final result – the printed piece whose cover appears above. We collaborated directly with CoVi’s Director of Channel Marketing, Stacy Saxon, and company CEO Barry Walker.

Together, we combined the three distinctive features of CoVi’s exceptional tech into [1] a single, benefit-oriented message and [2] a new graphic look that makes the company look like the genuine category leader it is and will help drive its marketing.

That’s the purpose of the cover’s bold “Q3” that matches the CoVi red: the thinking that’s gone into the company’s technologies offers a single answer to the three questions that bedevil the firm’s target audiences: corporate and governmental managers, IT personnel and security teams. (Why? Because it’s not enough to capture high-definition video – it’s got to be available through a company’s IT network and usable by security personnel on a real-time basis, that’s why.) And these are just three of the CoVi stakeholder groups.

I’ll brazenly quote from Saxon’s response to us: The concepts were beyond my expectations. Even though I knew to expect great things I was pleasantly surprised at how ‘dead on’ the concepts turned out. I was concerned that CoVi’s message was fluid but you guys ‘got it’ and articulated it very accurately both word-wise and graphics-wise. I’m just extremely excited about this project and thrilled to be working with you both – you make a great team.

It’s refreshing to see us (CoVi) develop a professional piece like this – sharp, crisp copy and that edgy/progressive tone/style that we want. I also really appreciate you guys working with us on the quick-turn needs; thank you for accommodating that requirement.

Thanks again so much to you both - you're very easy and enjoyable to work with and your work is pretty terrific too!

And thanks to CoVi, which demonstrates one more time that great clients get great work. Maybe next time, we’ll be able to see precisely who’s kissing whom in Zone 3, Level 2 of that garage.

Shy Cow

The only cow in a small town in Poland stopped giving milk. The villagers did some research and found they could buy a cow from Moscow for 2,000 rubles or a cow from Minsk for 1,000 rubles. Being poor, they bought the cow from Minsk.

The cow was wonderful. It produced lots of milk all the time. The people were amazed and very happy. They decided to acquire a bull to mate with the cow and produce more cows just like it. Then they would never have to worry about their milk supply again.

They bought the bull and put it in the pasture with their beloved cow. However, whenever the bull came close to the cow, the cow would move away. No matter what approach the bull tried, the cow from move away from the bull and he could not succeed in his quest.

The people were very upset. They decided to ask the Rabbi, who was very wise, what they should do. The people told the Rabbi, “Whenever the bull approaches our cow, she moves away. If he approaches from the back, she moves forward. If he approaches from the front, she backs off. When he approaches from the side, she walks away to the other side.”

The Rabbi thought about this for a moment and then asked the villagers, “Did you buy this cow from Minsk?”

The people were dumbfounded. They had never mentioned where they’d gotten the cow. One older villager said, “You truly are a wise Rabbi! How did you know we got the cow from Minsk?”

The Rabbi answered, “My wife is from Minsk.”

With thanks to Leigh Lerner, the wisest Rabbi I know.

Alien Visitors

There’s nothing more enjoyable than watching “foreigners” enjoy Houston. So the visit here last week by Art and Bridget Hoffman (our niece and nephew-in-law) from the Frozen North was welcome. Their company was worthwhile in so many ways – Barbara and I would like to thank them for braving Southeast Texas in high summer; for being excellent guests; for causing me to drink more beer in seven days than I’ve had in seven months; and for the enthusiasm with which they tackled this part of the state.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a couple “learn” the city so quickly, the way they did: Houston is not an easy urban area to traverse and they handled our traffic and our streets effortlessly. They visited Austin. They visited Galveston. They visited strange eating places and even stranger bars. And they still had time for a great day in the pool with our grand-daughter Maddy (the one in the middle).

It’s also a bit strange to be out with a couple who got carded at virtually every bar and restaurant we went to. One waitress graciously offered to scrutinize my driver’s license, which made me feel – for an instant – somewhat more youthful than I normally behave.

The fact that their visit brought sunshine back to town was the biggest non-human treat of all…and we kept enjoying it after they returned to Minnesota. Bridget enjoyed the sun; Art discovered one of Texas’s natural wonders: Shiner Bock. A fine time was had by all. Thanks for the visit. Y’all come back soon, y’hear?

Screwing Stakeholders

When it comes to stakeholders, a company’s relationships can be either overt or covert. The Associated Press, for example, reported this on 20 June:

Tidewater Inc., the world's largest operator of vessels serving the offshore oil and gas industry, may move its corporate headquarters to Houston, company president Dean Taylor said Wednesday.

“We have a lot of sympathy for the city, but our shareholders don't pay us to have sympathy,” he said. “They pay us to have results for them. We ultimately need to do what's for them.”

This sterling example made the Houston Chronicle the following day via its “Around the Region” section…just a three-‘graph article that caught my attention because Taylor, who’s not only CEO but Chairman of the Board, seemed to go out of his way to tell the members of its long-time New Orleans home to drop dead. The Times-Picayune has been all over this story; Tidewater has been mending its Louisiana fences ever since.

On the covert side, Chronicle columnist Loren Steffy reported yesterday that Sprint Nextel is cutting off customers – canceling their service – if they use the company’s customer service help line too frequently. You ought to read Steffy’s column because he’s a far better journalist than I am and reports the story better. But one telling point is worth repeating here:

…The bigger problem is the message Sprint is sending to all customers — and to all customer service employees. As it moves down this slippery slope, Sprint could, for example, decide to drop customers who spend too many minutes roaming on plans where roaming charges are included in the price.

Tidewater’s done it publicly; Sprint Nextel hasn’t really spread the word about its peculiar anti-customer policy around – unless you’re one of the “riffraff” who got a service termination letter.

These love-me-or-leave-me approaches keep pointing out that we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us if we want to turn corporations into models of positive stakeholder interaction. The Stakeholder Rule© is still at the whim of CEOs and Chairmen of the Board everywhere.

The President of the New York Central Railroad, William H. Vanderbilt, was perfectly happy to say, “The public be damned.” That was 1888. He got away with it. Today, we don’t have to be so acquiescent...let’s fight back for our relationships.

“Stakeholder Rule” © Richard Laurence Baron. All rights reserved.

He’brew Beer

There’s nothing remarkable in the hot, surly morning sunlight. A beautiful middle-aged woman climbs down from a dusty family van, slides open the cargo door, reaches in and lifts out an ordinary cardboard box. About yay wide. About yay high. Heavy.

A tall older man rises out of a late-model taupe Deville, scrapes across the unpaved restaurant parking lot and takes the box from her, leaning over awkwardly to give her a kiss on the cheek. He returns to his car and presses the key fob – the trunk lid pops open. He places the box carefully in the Caddy’s trunk, just as a Suburban with a pair of Texas Highway Patrolmen and a couple of guards from the Huntsville prison unit pull up beside the car.

Puffs of dust rise from the Suburban’s tires as the driver brakes and the cops climb out – four heavy men who cross the lot, headed for an early lunch at The Junction restaurant. They don’t look at the Deville or its owner. “Mature” white guys in Cadillacs never raise a lawman’s eyebrows. The Caddy has Texas plates. The woman’s van comes from Georgia – you can see the peach on the license plate across the lot.

The troopers missed the perfect daytime switcheroo, the smuggler’s art performed without a net outside that Huntsville restaurant. Edith Fusillo had just passed me more than a dozen bowling-pin-sized bottles of He’Brew Beer. Yeah, that’s right, the real stuff, “Brewed by Jews” at the Schmaltz Brewing Company. Legal in Georgia. Not available in the sovereign state of Texas.

Even how I came to discover this great brand is like something out of Exodus (the Leon Uris novel, not the Old Testament chapter). I heard about it first from Adam Halpern at SoftSell Training; went immediately to the website which is a hoot.

In the end, like smuggling arms into postwar Palestine to equip the Palmach, I received the beer along with a marvelous example of word-of-mouth advertising.

Founder Jeremy Cowan has done a superior job of branding “the Chosen Beer.” Unlike a lot of mass-market consumer goods, the entire mishpocha gets credit on the great website, from the brewers to the art directors to the director of a very funny TV commercial. It would be excellent to see more CPG companies share out the credit for great work.

Second, the beers are not only Kosher, they’re fine examples of craft-brewing art. Edith and Bob Fusillo brought us He’Brew’s Messiah Bold (“The Beer You’ve Been Waiting For!), Bittersweet Lenny’s RIPA (a rye-based, double India Pale Ale) and Genesis 10:10 (a superb dark ale with a touch of pomegranate juice that lends the most marvelous color to the brew).

These are strong beers – 10% alcohol – but the spirits never get in the way of three distinctively different tastes. Still, each variety is true to its type and it tastes just fine.

The company admits to all the schtick surrounding the brand…it’s built a superb back story for the whole brand as well as for each and every variety it’s brewed. If you genuinely believe that each brand should have a story to tell, Schmaltz has done its marketing job extremely well.

So think about this post as a combination taste-test and brand exploration…one that began by word-of-mouth and keeps on going through every beer we (jealously) open. Schmaltz is building stakeholder involvement one bottle at a time.

I have saved out a couple of bottles of Messiah Bold for Halpern – he tipped me off about this. But until Schmaltz finds a distributor in Texas (or better yet, in Houston), I’m going to hoard this stuff as best I can. It’s “the Chosen Beer” after all and I’m choosing to keep as much as I can for our Spring Branch household. There’s no telling when the Fusillos will be making another run to Texas.

These are the kind of ales that Cecil B DeMille would have made if he’d skipped the movie business – but it’s definitely his kind of branding. L’Chaim, y’all!

Imboden’s 4th

“O God I why can't I die!”

“My God, will no one have mercy and kill me!”

“Stop! Oh! For God's sake, stop just for one minute; take me out and leave me to die on the roadside.”

“I am dying! I am dying! My poor wife, my dear children, what will become of you?”

Confederate General John Daniel Imboden commanded a cavalry brigade that arrived at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on the afternoon of the 3rd of July, 1863 – too late to take part in the battle that had raged for three days.

On the following day, the 4th, Robert E Lee ordered General Imboden and his cavalry brigade to protect the train of Confederate wounded as it retreated toward the Potomac River, to escape into Virginia.

The column moved out at 4PM. It stretched for miles. Imboden recorded the cries of the severely wounded Confederates in his train as it made its way west, first, toward Chambersburg; then south to Williamsport on the Potomac.

While Imboden retreated, the Confederate garrison of Vicksburg, Mississippi, marched out of their entrenchments, stacked their arms and furled their flags. The victorious Union army marched in and took possession the city which had been under siege since 22nd May.

President Lincoln, when he was informed of Vicksburg’s surrender, exclaimed, “The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea.” In the east, Imboden successfully evacuated his train, “probably ten thousand animals and nearly all the wagons of General Lee’s army under our charge, and all the wounded, to the number of several thousand, that could be brought from Gettysburg,” to Virginia on the 9th of July.

Today, 144 years later, we remember heroes and courage, national independence and American freedoms. And sometimes, the awful price we’ve paid for those freedoms.

Happy Swiss!

Although it wasn’t the reason I got a phone call from Peter Thoma in Rorschach, Switzerland, the first thing out of his mouth was, “We won!”

I said, in my best Schweiz-Deutsch, “Huh?”

Peter (Chairman of Swiss advertising agency ET&H and a long-time colleague) patiently explained that the Swiss yacht had won the America’s Cup: “Alinghi won the 32nd America's Cup 5-2 against Team New Zealand on Tuesday, in a regatta widely hailed as the most exciting in recent history,” according to TVNZ.

For those less up-to-the-minute than Peter and the rest of Switzerland, Alinghi is the name of the really quite gorgeous boat, and the defending yacht club, established in the Year 0, is Société Nautique de Genève.

With its first victory in the Year 3, Alinghi brought the America’s Cup back to Europe for the first time in 152 years. It looks like the Cup’s going to stay there. In Switzerland – that well-known yachting nation.

Sports promoters take note: UBS and other Swiss sponsors are going to make a killing over this, PR-wise. Und so, Peter, Glückwünsche zu alles!

Trading Cards

Hey, kids! Be the first ones on your block to get the hottest thing in trading cards. That precious “Dale Earnhardt Showcar ‘05” card your daddy picked up in Alabama – that’s for wusses. Your grandpa’s “Mickey Mantle” card? Fuggedaboutit!

Now you can get your hands on genuine Power Plant Trading Cards from Industcards. They’re the most exciting thing to hit card collectors since…oh, four-color printing. Made right here in the good old USA by Ultra Graphics in Columbus, NE, you can get your favorite power plants and hydroelectric dams, with all the outstanding highlights for each one on the back of every card. Leaf and Topps don’t even come close to trading cards like these! Not since the heady days of “Rails & Sails” has there been a collectible like Industcards.

Your friends will throw up all over their Florsheims when you show off your PP207, the “Fayette Power Project” near Lagrange, TX – a real stunner that will only gain in value as your collection grows. It’s a terrific shot (see above) of this 1,605-megawatt, coal-fired steam-electric plant that burns sub-bituminous coal from the Powder River Basin! Riveting details on the reverse side not only include the owners’ names, but the architects and engineers, and the boiler supplier too.

Add to your collection with cards showing units from all over the US (like “Grand Coulee” and “Indian River”) as well as some of the great power-producing facilities of the world. Don’t miss the stunning “Sayano-Shusenskaya Hydro” dam in Russia. Collect entire series – if you can find ‘em – like the unique Orion Power Holdings set; or the US Nuclear Fleet cards that include both “Brown’s Ferry” in Alabama and California’s famous “Diablo Canyon.” Wow!

Get your first set of cards absolutely FREE! Just send a stamped, self-addressed envelope (41¢ stamp) to Industcards, 5605 Bent Brand Road, Bethesda, MD 20816 today.

But hurry! Supplies are limited and you don’t want to wait ‘til these beauties show up on eBay for twice or three times the price. Start your collection today.

NOTE: Despite Internet rumors, my sponsored ten-card series, featuring coal-fired generating stations with boilers and other equipment supplied by Japan's Babcock-Hitachi KK, is not for sale. Yep – this is the set that has the notorious “Tarong” error in it. Eat your heart out, Joel.

Elective Emotions

I decided not to write this fast. So it appears today instead of right after the American Marketing Association-Houston’s Healthcare SIG event. I hope you take a moment to read it.

My previous Elective Surgery post invited medical marketers to hear about “Marketing Elective Medical Procedures.” All the information we needed to begin to market elective medical procedures was laid out by four speakers this past Wednesday.

Yep, there were tips and takeaways about marketing plans and media; measurements to determine which campaigns worked and which campaigns did not. Why out-of-home doesn’t work for people who don’t go out much, but the Internet does.

These are mere nuts-and-bolts, the things we ought to have learned in college or through years of working in the industry.

It became clear in our speakers’ presentations that marketing the “electives” – urological and gynecological procedures in one case, bariatric surgical solutions for the morbidly obese in the other – is intimately connected with humanity.

The most difficult group of people to whom to market elective procedures are women with these health problems because of the extremely sensitive and revealing nature of the conditions.

What did I re-learn?

1. Genuine empathy is important and intensely personal. Kimberly P Taylor (left) is Director of Marketing Brand Strategy for Bariatric Partners and is rolling out a new brand image for the organization’s flagship program, Journey Lite for Life. She pointed out, “The mission of a bariatric program is to treat the disease of obesity. It must be done with compassion, sensitivity, and be heartfelt in order to succeed.”

“Heartfelt.” Every speaker, from the physician and the nurse to the directors of marketing, repeatedly emphasized it. Taylor spoke specifically about her specialty: “If your heart isn’t touched by the obese, don’t even consider going into bariatrics.” Empathy applies no matter what the area of practice.

2. Connect with prospective patients in meaningful and intelligent ways. Patient needs can be medical, certainly; but also psychological and social and financial: elective procedures often contain a monetary component that is part of the “worry structure” and it ought to be addressed in the marketing process.

3. Select creative and media that transmit compassion, that help build confidence and trust.

4. Continue the relationship with your patients – not only to retain them, but to grow your practice (whether you’re representing a major hospital or a small group of physicians). Stay connected with them. Enable them to form additional connections that “continue the campaign” long after the actual procedure.

The four speakers: Dr. Richard Collier and Kimberly Taylor of Bariatric Partners, Inc.; and Nurse Practitioner Joleen Bishop and Mary Beth Robinson of Obstetrics and Gynecology Associates, PA. They spoke to more than 30 marketers for a full hour and a half about the topic. Several attendees commented that the program was too long. But for every attendee that left to return to work, there was another who stayed on, talking to the speakers well after 2PM.

Sooner or later, our Association is going to release a new definition of marketing. Right now, it’s this: Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.

Among the famous “4 Ps” of marketing (Product, Position, Price and Promotion), it seems that “People” has gone missing. Check out the current post by Susan Kirkland on pharmaceutical pricing practices if you don’t believe me.

Although the AMA mentions “stakeholders” in its definition, it’s clear we (sometimes) institutionally forget the human in the equation – at least when it comes to healthcare marketing.

Thank goodness our speakers came along to remind us.

Photograph © _ib_ Dreamstime.com

Big Wheel

Remember that Stakeholder Rule I created a few posts back? Like here and here?

The rule says, A company’s position ought to take hold – and take place – in the minds of all its stakeholders.

What happens when the position, or the brand, keeps on interacting – even when there is no “overt” activity on the part of the brand owner? Sometimes, these brands maintain their solid connections to our culture while no one is looking. Except in the minds of millions of stakeholders.

In the case of one well-known product, time flies – literally: the Frisbee is 50 years old as of this past Sunday. I couldn’t have written a better story than Michael Liedtke did for AP, here. As you can read, the company (now owned by the Chinese Cornerstone Overseas Investment Limited) vigorously protects its trademark. Although the Frisbee® flying toy isn’t the “choice of champions” anymore, the brand still exercises a powerful hold over peoples’ minds and hands.

But Gary Richardson sent me the above photo from IGN.com, and I wondered what happened to the original Big Wheel® ride-on trike.

Answer: it’s still rolling at age 38. Louis Marx Toys developed the Big Wheel and presented it to the public at the 1969 New York Toy Fair. Because of its outstanding popularity, many of today’s parents have special childhood memories that include endless hours of joy on their Big Wheels.

Big Wheel sometimes bears a registered trademark but (like escalator) became a generic name for any toy whose design resembled Marx’s. Marx sold the Big Wheel brand name and molds to Empire Plastics, Marx's biggest competitor, in the early 1970s. The ride-on got high marks for safety because it was built much lower to the ground than the old steel-type trikes.

Marketing surveys from the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s put Big Wheel near the top of the list as one of the most recognizable household brand names of all time.

Today Alpha International, Inc., makes and sells Big Wheel ride-ons, re-launching it at the 2003 New York Toy Fair. Its use of the registered trademark is inconsistent. Target is selling the “Original Big Wheel” (no ® here) for just $29.99 – to very mixed reviews.

We Barons and Slaviks, from an older tradition, raised our kids on the classic steel Radio Flyer® #34 Classic Red Tricycle. We still have one in the garage we bought and assembled for our grand-daughter. But even Radio Flyer has a Big-Wheel-type ride-on called “Big Flyer.”

More important, though, Big Wheel continues to interact with its stakeholders. There’re Big Wheel Rallies, giant versions of the toy at one of the DisneyWorld venues – even the motorcycle version you see up top. Still interacting with your Big Wheel ride-on? Just google “Big Wheel Events and Promotions” and go crazy, you old stakeholder.

“Stakeholder Rule” © Richard Laurence Baron. All rights reserved.

Moon Dog

If there really is “a tide in the affairs of men,” as Shakespeare writes, “which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune,” then it changes with maturity. For white guys of a certain age (like me), the tide seems to lead on to tropical shirts.

For cutting-edge Hawaiian shirt fashion, it’s been hard to replace Reg Mombasa and the Loud Shirt Gang who used to work under the Mambo label out of Australia. It’s been look-around, peek-into-corners action; keep searching the Worldwide Web. I’m not talking about your chain-store stuff here – that’s for the hoi polloi.

I mean your really OUTRAGEOUS aloha shirts, the kind that, when you’re 6-feet-6-inches tall and weigh 270 pounds, make a definite statement (such as “I’m color-blind and I don’t care” or “Aren’t you amazed that my wife let me out of the house wearing this!”)

Thanks to the power of word-of-mouth advertising, though, I’ve scored this super-fine “Rose Tattoo” shirt from Judy and Richard Kuenstler at Moon Dog in Austin, TX. This is a handmade cotton beauty, a spectacular piece of work that shouts, “Hey, look, I dressed myself.”

I ran into this guy at one of Roni McMurtrey’s gallery openings a couple Saturdays back; we could see each other across the room because no one (man, woman or child) had shirts that remotely mustered the sheer candlepower of the ones we were wearing. Only his was…different. It had like these Mexican Day of the Dead figures on it. Really rocking.

Naturally I complimented him on his shirt. He responded in kind. Then I asked where he had purchased it. He said, “You can buy one just like this from Moon Dog in Austin.” That was simple enough to remember. But I said right back at him, “This shirt is your statement. I’d never buy your shirt. Thank you – I’ll check out the company online and see what else it’s got.”

And I did. See above.

Sure, I could have gone stronger but I like to think I’m more subtle than that (sounds of many people in background unsuccessfully smothering their ridicule). Moon Dog has plenty of options which the Kuenstlers make to order. Excellent!

Here’s a firm that’s been around since ’84 and I’m just hearing about it. But then I purposely don’t spend time in Austin either. Fortunately, word-of-mouth works once again and I’m proud to pass on the favor: Moon Dog Shirt Company.

I don’t know the name of that guy was at the McMurtrey Gallery, but he’s got a great shirt! Happy Father’s Day.

New: Cynapsus

Once upon a time – oh, about two years ago – Mary Jo Martin went out on her own. She created a company called Knowledge-Based Marketing. You’ve seen some of the joint efforts she and I have created, like the disaster communications research study here.

Presto-Change-O! Knowledge-Based Marketing is now Cynapsus. (Magical, ain’t it?)

Martin’s business model changed. Knowledge-hyphen-Based Marketing seemed right two years ago. Today, Martin doesn’t really do marketing. She has increasingly and successfully concentrated on multi-faceted market research.

At the same time (after two years in business) her organization became successful enough to be confused with another company called “KnowledgeBase (no hyphen, no “D”) Marketing,” a large business unit of the even larger Wunderman international marketing communications agency.

Knowledge-Based Marketing…isn’t.

This Wunderman business unit – it never registered with the Texas Secretary of State. I guess those big agency types figured they didn’t need to. Maybe it’s not too surprising: Wunderman is part of WPP, a hugeous multinational agency group with so many operating units, even the ad mags can’t keep track of them.

Martin’s smaller company passed unnoticed (except by her clients) for a couple dozen months. But then, people started to call Martin instead of Wunderman. They asked Martin about mailing lists, which the Wunderman group sells. Very annoying, specially since Martin doesn’t do lists either.

It’s time for a change and Martin has made it.

The old name was quite serious but boring. Way too much is happening in our marketplaces today to be boring. So first, Mark Rothenburg pitched in to invent a whole new name for her firm. Rothenberg believes (with quite a bit of justification) that arbitrary or fanciful names offer the best choice of protection and securing a trademark.

Now Martin says:

Cynapsus describes the left-brain thinking that we apply to our many market research projects…the analytical thinking that helps our clients move from the research findings to activity. (Hear those synapses firing yet?) Cynapsus is about asking the right questions of the right people at the right time. We even included the question mark in our new logo – because we want people to ask us what we’re all about. Cynapsus moves clients from data to knowledge to action – exactly the way your own synapses move you into action when your brain has assembled all the data you need. Cynapsus is also about connections. That’s what the word “synapse” actually means. We’re the connection between you and your customers, the connection between you and your prospects.

I got the opportunity to counsel Martin on her new logo and color scheme – we aimed for something that combined “distinctive” with “professional.”

When Martin had her new logomark created, this question mark got right to the point of her business, with a dash of sass. The burgundy color scheme makes for a grounded, corporate look.

I’m just as pleased with the new Cynapsus website. Feel free to drop in…and compliment her on the photograph we used: an attractive payoff to the Kurt Vonnegut line, “New knowledge is one of the most valuable commodities on earth.”

A lot of companies frame their first dollar and hang it on their walls. Mary Jo gets a whole new moniker – a nifty and distinctive brand.

Razoo Up

Razoo is in beta.

I only found out about this from a copyrighted article by Brad Hem in the Houston Chronicle. The company’s called iRazoo.com and “Four Houston entrepreneurs” are credited with launching the search engine they expect to challenge Google and Yahoo.

Click on the site and you’ll get a coming-soon sort of intro, but a nice story with beat-driven Indian music…clapping hands rhythm out the words: “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive.”

Like the article says, there are hundreds of smaller search engines in operation beside the Big Guys. What’s special about Razoo? It requires users to log in, which may slow it down. It is points-driven: I have never tried that. Trust in a new search engine is another big factor. Nevertheless, I always enjoy seeing hometown boys make good, even if they aren’t originally from around here.

Such an odd word, razoo; potentially, a great brand name. So I Googled it (well, why not? Razoo.com isn’t working yet). Turns out razoo is Down-Under slang for an imaginary coin of trivial value, the Oz version of a farthing; according to some definers, it’s used only in negative contexts: “Not worth a brass razoo” – though Encarta identifies it as Aussie for a gambling chip.

The latter definition fits this case pretty well. iRazoo is a gamble. Best of luck to ‘em, though.

If it works, you heard it here second.

Logo Conceited

Certainly you recognize the logo above. Its owner leaps right to the front of your mind, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it? Perhaps not.

You know I usually steer clear of overt criticism. On the other hand, of the dozens if not hundreds of logo marks for which I have been the Creative Director in the past 30 years, I don’t recall even recommending a candidate and a brand that’s been this…pretentious.

Maybe “arcane” is a kinder word. It’s a cuneiform inscription: the earliest-known written appearance of the word “freedom” (amagi), or “liberty.” That’s the gloss which many scholars have put upon it. It is taken from a clay tablet written about 2300 BC in the Sumerian city-state of Lagash.

The glyph and the word Amagi also serves as the imprint for all Liberty Fund books: an imprint that brings the past 100 years' classics of liberal economic and political theory to life for today’s college students, according to the website. You can find works that aren’t considered classics. However, the Liberty Fund considers them important to understanding a society of free and responsible individuals.

I won’t cast tablets at the organization’s intention. Based in Indianapolis, The Liberty Fund is a privately held educational foundation founded in 1960 by Pierre F Goodrich. When he died, he left much of his fortune to encourage the study of the ideal of a free society. The foundation develops, supervises and finances activities “to foster thought and encourage discourse on enduring issues pertaining to liberty.”

Well and good. But somebody, perhaps Goodrich himself, came up with this cuneiform logo and name. It is more than a little obscure, an academic curiosity that doesn’t transmit anything to the viewer except, “What the heck is that?” So the website helpfully explains it. That’s a body blow for any logo mark.

Yes, I do understand: every logo has to start somewhere. And I haven’t walked a mile in the Amagi logo mark creator’s shoes, especially since the creator is 4,500 years deceased. Passed on. Joined the Choir Invisible back when Sumer ruled supreme in Mesopotamia.

How many people really know that the BMW mark is a spinning white propeller blade against a blue sky? It reflects the origins of BMW as a maker of military aircraft engines for the Germans during World War I – but it’s associated today with outstanding motor vehicles. How about the Nike “swoosh?” It represents the wing of the eponymous Greek goddess. It first appeared in 1971 and has been gradually simplified as its frame increased. “Run fast,” it says.

So I do come from the school that says a logo ought to tell a story, even if it takes a few years for it to catch on (if ever). Most logos never make it to the Big Show: a common, even universal understanding that a particular mark stands for a specific brand like P&G’s moon-and-stars. Coca-Cola’s script. Disney’s Magic Kingdom castle.

Advertising what your logo stands for is really quite an important step, telling its story and wrapping it around your own.

Amagi, however, may just contentedly sit there being obscure. To be fair, the Amagi imprint does come up in the first two Google listings. (Several other listings point out that amagi means “heavenly castle” in Japan, being both the name of a city and a World War II Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carrier of the Unryū class – never deployed.)

You have to be acquainted with the brand name Amagi before you can look it up. Correct?

I wouldn’t have know about amagi at all save for its particular mention in a superb new book by Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World. It’s a fine, engaging history, let me tell you, with enough interleaved humor to help you realize this is one smart author with wide-ranging interests. I wouldn’t say 777 pages is a quick read although I’m already halfway through it. I recommend it strongly.

In addition to pointing out that the cuneiform marks were snapped up by the Liberty Fund, “simply proving that no good social reform goes unexploited,” (page 93), Bauer also remarks that the term amagi is arguably the first time the idea of “freedom” shows up in human written language. She notes (as does the Liberty Fund site) that amagi literally means “return to the mother.”

That is, the ruler of Lagash intended to return his kingdom to an earlier state, one that is more pure, “the state of justice intended by the gods.”

With this knowledge in mind, we could say that the Liberty Fund logo mark really means, “When you get tired of reading our books, go home to your momma.”

I am exaggerating for effect. Every company has the right to portray itself the way it likes. This cuneiform idea, however, is too precious. Maybe I just don’t have clients who are classically educated enough to appreciate the oddball nature of this brand name and logo mark. On the other hand, who knew what “Google” stood for when it was introduced?

Or maybe my clients recognize that we aren’t playing around outside the walls of academia. The Nike swoosh may have come from the Winged Victory of Samothrace, but it really means “I can beat you with one foot in a cast.”

Elective Surgery?

Charles Halliman went searching for a definition of elective medical services – like surgery. He’s a good researcher: he’s written and spoken about Business Intelligence for the medical community for more than a decade.

He discovered the job wasn’t quite as straightforward as the Healthcare Special Interest Group (or I) imagined.

“My research,” he says, “focused on how experts described bariatric surgery (for example), with respect to the word ‘elective.’ I wanted to see how often the word ‘choice’ was used in conjunction with the surgery. I didn’t find the word ‘choice’ very often. I found the words ‘necessary’ and ‘urgent’ more often. And I felt that saying that a patient can make a ‘choice’ to have the surgery may be misleading since strict criteria are used to decide when to do the surgery.”

Elective medical procedures aren’t life-threatening. They’re not always considered cosmetic, either.

Instead, an elective medical procedure can improve a sufferer’s quality of life. Bariatric services are just one field of “elective” practice that leads to better life quality. So are certain gynecological services (like pelvic reconstruction) – an area I’ve never considered and shame on me.

You and I are going to find out more about how these quality-of-life options are marketed on Wednesday June 20, 2007.

A specializing physician (Dr. Ginger Cathey, MD, FACOG) and a pair of highly skilled marketing professionals (Mary Beth Robinson and Kimberly Taylor) will present “Marketing Elective Medical Services” at a special lunch-time event.

Elective medical procedures involve complex issues like patient need, motivation, and awareness, not to mention insurance and financial constraints. Marketing these so-called “electives” is sometimes very tricky. We’re not talking botox injections here.

We’ve been promised some case studies about marketing tactics plus the importance of physician communication to grow the practice.

So if you’re a marketer from any Houston-area healthcare organization, or you have healthcare-related clients for your advertising, PR or design practice, get the details and register on line here.

Your reminder’s right there on the clipboard. The place is the Hilton Houston Plaza, 6633 Travis Street in the Medical Center. (I’ll probably take the train.) The marketing event has been put together by the American Marketing Association chapter’s Healthcare SIG. We’ll start at 11.30AM on the dot.

You can choose to miss out on a presentation that may improve the quality of your skills. Or elect to come to the luncheon and learn something necessary, even urgent.

Tuesday thank-yours to Prism Design, Inc., Medical Journal Houston and XL Films for the extra support.

Memorial Day

At 3PM today, we’re asked to take a moment and reflect in silence on the men and women who gave their lives for our country in so many wars.

When the rain stops, I’ll put the family’s American Flag out. Go up to the corner store, where I’ll likely find a red paper poppy for sale. On Memorial Day in the United States, and Great Britain’s, Canada’s and Australia’s Remembrance Day, it used to be quite common to wear a paper or cloth poppy as a lapel pin.

Just as World War I ended, Moina Belle Michael thought to wear real red poppies on Memorial Day in honor of those who died serving America during war. She got the idea from a poem she’d read, “In Flanders Field.” She was the first to wear one, and sold poppies to her friends and co-workers. The money went to benefit servicemen in need.

A Frenchwoman, Madame E Guérin, was visiting the United States and learned of this new custom started by Michael. When she returned to France, she made artificial red poppies to raise money for war orphaned children and widowed women. The tradition spread to other countries.

In 1921, the Franco-American Children's League sold poppies nationally to benefit war orphans of France and Belgium. The League disbanded a year later and Madam Guerin approached the American Veterans of Foreign Wars for help. Shortly before Memorial Day in 1922 the VFW became the first veterans' organization to nationally sell poppies. Two years later its Buddy Poppy Program was selling artificial poppies made by disabled veterans.

Michael was a countrywoman of mine, born near Good Hope, GA, in 1869. Her daddy was a veteran of the Civil War, serving with the Confederate States Army in some of the largest and most important actions of the war. She grew up with the effects of war on her own family, in her own backyard.

She attended Lucy Cobb Institute and the Georgia State Teachers College, both in Athens, and Columbia University. In later life she had become one of Georgia’s outstanding educators. She died on 10 May 1944.

On 9 November 1948, the US Post Office held first-day-of-issue ceremonies in Athens, Ga. for a 3¢ commemorative stamp honoring Michael. The stamp’s release came on the 30th anniversary of the day she conceived of the idea of selling poppies to help care for disabled soldiers and their families.

After his World War II service, my father-in-law Sam Slavik, USCG, became an active member of the VFW. (My daddy, Paul Hirsch Baron, USAAF, wasn’t such a joiner.) My mother-in-law, Rosemary Slavik, spent years in the VFW Ladies Auxiliary and she was still making red paper poppies for her post until she retired.

The 3¢ stamp is long gone but the paper poppies remain. It’s a remembrance that hardly costs more than a passing thought. It’s worth so much more.