Resolved

It’s so easy to buy into a creative formula or stereotype.   To look for shortcuts in past equities or to borrow from other categories or the style du jour.  There’s safety in familiarity…. but pilgrim… that is the path to creative boredom and destruction.

This type of marketing is so easily dismissed by the audience.  And long term, it just does not work because it’s not founded in your brand’s truth.  It’s founded in envy or laziness.

We seek to disrupt.  We seek to be the original not a copycat.  Differentiation is not found in formulas or stereotypes or creative shortcuts.  It’s not borrowed.  It’s not enough to look like everybody else so we fit in ...we have to look like who we are and stand out.  To be relevant, but different.

We don’t have enough money to make boring creative; to run expected marketing campaigns.  Study the competition to AVOID their creative techniques.  Be different, be better.

This is hard work.  Actually it’s much harder work.  And while I have strayed the path from time to time... in 2015... I recommit to this vision.

Uncaged

It occurred to me that business is like a railroad.

At some point, a huge investment in money, time and innovation was made to blast the mountains, lay the rails, build the stations, and buy the locomotives.  This was hard work, daring work, risky work.  It required boldness and action and force of will.

But then the work shifted.

What was once about the creator and his vision....became about the creation

And the creation is essentially a fixed machine that runs on defined physics.

And the laws of physics become the cage.

No matter how efficient we make the locomotive… it still can’t fly.

No matter how fast it runs, it still can’t leave the rail.

Most of us toil for mature businesses in mature categories
We spend most of our hours loading coal into the locomotive

It’s a full time job keeping the wheels turning and running on time.

It’s honest work, it’s hard work.

We chase cheaper coal, look for more powerful coal, coal that burns cleaner.
But we don’t really get paid for all the effort,
because at the end of the day… it’s still train travel
It's a battle for share, a battle of inches.

And occasionally when we dare to build a new engine… 
...perhaps even an innovative engine… the rails still define us.

What’s the point here?

Innovation inside the cage has limited upside.  It’s coal.

Innovation outside the cage requires the courage of a creator.

Boldness, daring, drive, vision, delayed gratification.

What type of innovation are you pursuing?

Brand as a Memory

There is a school of thought that defines a brand as a promise. Or an expectation. That thinking has always resonated with me.

Lately I've been thinking about that expectation and realize that it is based on all past experiences with the brand (perhaps the category). Said another way, the brand becomes your collective memory of past interactions.

That memory could be from advertising, word of mouth, actual use, observed, etc. All those interactions have functional and emotional dimensions....and consequences. It's all in the mental blender and part of what comes to mind and heart when you think of a brand.

When we inherit stewardship of a brand, we inherit all the memories...good and bad and absent. And for me...when I think about memories, I think about FEELINGS (cue Morris Albert  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRaI7ZOmTr4 )
How does a memory make me feel? (Remember the old adage about speeches? They won't remember what you said, they will remember how you made them feel?)

As a marketer I think a lot about the present and future of brands. But doesn't the future begin in the past? 

So I'm wondering, what do they remember about my brands? How do those memories make them feel? Whatever message they see from us today...it will have to climb through those memories, those feelings.

If they don't have a specific memory of the brand...what will they pull from to set context? To judge.  To decide.  Category memories?  The last time they tried a new product?  What do we want to attach our memories to?

Brand reputation or equity is a phrase I have thrown around loosely, lately its taken a deeper importance when I think of it as a memory.  

It's hard to change a memory.

What Do You Work For?

What if it wasn't just about commerce.  Or the quarterly results.  Or feeding the never ending procession of managers and shareholders that want nothing but short term return and their career advancement.  

What if it was about building a brand you wanted to work on.  Building a company where you wanted to work.  Working with people you respected and wanted to work with.  

What if it was about being challenged everyday by the opportunity of the business, the difficulty in the challenge, and the personal improvement that comes from trying really hard ....alongside other people who are trying really hard.  

What if it was about legacy and lasting significance.  

Oh I care about quarterly earnings, but I know that the right long term vision and motivation will fuel quarterly earnings.  Not vice verse.

Honestly, I work for myself now.  For my own internal purposes.  To feed a drive that does not go quietly into mediocrity.  

I'm harder on myself than anyone else can be, because only I can measure my true effort and passion.  And I can't be content until both are spent.

Artful Branding

I've spent a career in marketing and branding.  I've done some work I'm not proud of...for reasons that were nearsighted and self promoting.  Crass commercial crap.

But in this mid-season of life, I have found a compass point that inspires me.  It takes the commercial job of marketing and marries it to the arts.  I'm calling it artful branding.  It's my new standard for work:

Artful Branding: The use of skill & imagination in the creation of commercial objects or experiences that exalt the senses, mind or spirit.

And my close friend said, "Good luck with that".

What Will February Mean To You?

They say... innovation is something new that adds value.

I ask...value to whom?

To you?  To us?  To the collective we?

My answer is yes....to all.

Any time you innovate...at home, at work, where ever...you are strengthening a skill that serves not just you, but everyone you touch.  And everything you do.

New.  Different.

An idea...envisioned anew or stolen... but tried by you for the first time.  

A new approach. 

Purposely discarding a proven method to evaluate something that might be better.

Oh, it's inefficient as hell.  

It's often unfruitful.

It's unappreciated.

It brings risk.

It's damn hard.

Yet it's ultimately what our business... and your role... demands.

Because it is ultimately the only way we grow.  

As people, as marketers, as a business.

Are you being innovative at work? at home? anywhere?

Marketing is a creative field, what are you creating? 

2013 is the year we create.

We find new ideas.

We try new ideas.

We fail at new ideas.

We learn from failure.

We succeed.

January is gone.

In 31 days February will be past.

Will it slip away, or will it be the month when a new idea changed your course.

Your new idea.

One Dimensional

I like the whole idea of one.  Do one thing; do it well.  Boil it down to a core essence, the primary fulcrum, and focus on that relentlessly.  Obsess.  Become famous for it.  Own something.  I just wish I could act on my convictions.

Many companies and people are attracted to this notion, but very few live by it.  They hedge.  They diversify.  They extend.  They unfocus.  They seek multi-dimensionality and typically arrive at non-dimensionality.  

I see so many businesses stuck in this quagmire.  Somewhere in history they traded their single-minded focus for a multi-front campaign.  They spend decades honing their core business and competency, then assume that over the course of 3-4 years they can recreate that magic in a new category or channel or country.  And they usually don’t.  They end up with average.  And rather than retreating or forging ahead they hold, then they extend again and again and again until the company is more average than great.  Starbucks.  Campbell Soup.  Burger King.  KFC.

My generation of leadership inherited this mess.  Sins of the father and the diversify movement.  We are beholden to Wall Street to grow …. so we shutter to think what shedding all this revenue would mean.  And truth be told, many of these ancillary lines can’t even be divested.  Who wants to buy PowerAde from Coke?   What CEO is willing to admit the millions poured into these average brands has been a bust?  That not just the revenue, but the asset, needs written off?

Agencies do this too.  Rather than accept that their resources should be leveraged against a core competency … say creative… they invest bodies and mindshare against disciplines where they are average at best.  The net effect is that clients see them as average.  That the weak link breaks the chain.

And we do it as people.  Our personal lives are hallmarked by over commitments in the numerous areas we strive to master.  Husband.  Dad.  Friend.  Brother.  Son.

Oh I know this is idealistic.  But isn’t that the point?  To shoot for the moon and at least hit the ceiling.  The construct is focus, simplicity, subtraction.   Uni-tasking... not multi-tasking.

I just wish I could act on my convictions.  

How about you?

Confession of the Bad Self-Editor

I started my career with very little written correspondence. A couple of letters a day to clients, usually nothing more than a slightly revised form letter. "Thanks for your interest..."

Now we all write all the time. Email and text if nothing else. Personal and professional. Considered and rushed. Life has become an endless stream of writing. I'm still learning.

For the last 4-5 years, many branding experts have been proposing that branding is storytelling. And while storytelling is verbal, it is also written. I'm still learning.

The hardest part for me is editing. It's not practical to have another person edit all your correspondence. But truth be told, I hate editing. It's my arrogance that gets in the way, but I'm still learning.

Most times I'm left with the task of self-editing (by choice or practicality). Lately, this is the mental checklist I use.

Grammar and Spelling: Obvious yes, but it still bites me occasionally. Learning not to rely 100% on spellcheck.

Flow/Plot: For business writing, set the context and then present in a logical flow. I learned this at P&G and it haunts me still today.

Simplicity: Delete. Delete. Simplify words. Simplify concepts. Delete. Trim. Always less than one page. Always less than 10 slides.

Voice: I find that I tend to write like a know-it-all. Everything is written in a persuasive voice. I'm learning that today's audiences are often better reached in a more conversational, "walk with me" voice. Back to that arrogance thing again.

I'm ok at the first two points, but the last two are blind spots for me. Complex, verbose, buzz-word writing shows expertise. Right? Wrong. Arrogant, self-important voice impresses the audience. Right? Wrong. So at least I'm self-aware. Now what?

Any advice? I'm still learning.

The Persuader

"It's all so cool...that it's easy to lose track of why we are here."

There are lots of exciting new marketing channels and ideas floating around these days. I feel we are in a re-invention period for our craft, perhaps the largest shift since the ascendancy of television in the 1950's. A season of exploration and experimentation full of great hope and "coming of age" energy. It's all so cool...that it's easy to lose track of why we are here.

In the end, we are hired to persuade. To convince a targeted audience to prefer our brand and buy it repeatedly. Lose site of this objective at your brand's risk (and your own).

Don't get me wrong, there are different forms of persuasion. Persuasion doesn't have to be clumsy, predictable and heavy-handed. It can be subtle, enticing and elegant. Persuasion plays in different disguises....but it must play.

Why build a community on social networks? To build relationship. Why relationship? To open a channel of interactive dialogue. Why dialogue? So we can listen, understand and ultimately craft product and messages that are persuasive. To persuade. Yes ultimately community is about persuasion.

If this feels exploitive and manipulative to you, don't worry. The consumer knows what you are trying to do. Do you?

Habitual Purchase

We gathered in the lobby for a social lunch.

"Where are we going?" I asked. "Any ideas?" he replied.
"How about x?" I offered. "No." he replied. "What about Y?" I volleyed. "Nah."
"Then you decide." I snipped. "Oh, I don't care." he said.

Most purchases are made from habit. If we stopped to rationally discuss and weigh every decision, nothing would get done. We'd find ourselves in internal and external dialogue similar to the one above. Habitual purchase is convenient and expedient. It's how we navigate life.

Habit is a wonderful "cheat" for marketers. Once our brand becomes a habit, human nature kicks in (and we kick back). But don't confuse habitual purchase with true brand loyalty or affinity or preference. It may just be convenience. Habits aren't even conscious decisions.

Habit may have been born in brand preference. A decision long ago, perhaps weighed carefully, resulted in repeated behavior. But the trap is to assume that this initial brand preference is still active. That they still love your brand. That they are even aware of your brand. I have talked to many consumers that can't name brands that they use regularly. (What brand of toilet paper is in your house? Paper towels? Spices? Air freshener?) If they can name them, they can't tell you why they use them.

The question is....what will happen when the consumer awakens and makes a conscious choice in your category?

As a new brand, half the battle is just getting that unconscious, habitual shopper to awaken and re-examine the category. But it's not easy to do. People are busy and most are fundamentally happy with their habitual choices. How do you interrupt? How do you insert doubt into this happy routine? I personally feel this is one of the primary roles of creative. To awaken, to start a new consideration.

As an established brand, the challenge is diligence and intellectual honesty. Do you know how your consumers really feel about your brand? Is there passion? Is there still a point of difference? Or do they just buy from habit. Most of our biggest brands are over 50 years old. We are on the 3rd or 4th generation of consumers many of whom learned to shop categories from their parents. A habit passed down through generations. I bet that if we compared our parents pantries with our own, we would find many of the same brands. We inherit more than our good looks from our parents. And the same is true at work. Institutional habits are often even stronger, and more deeply rooted than individual behavior.

What's the point? A brand built on habitual purchase is vulnerable. Better figure out where you stand.

Emotional Consequences

It was a long trip. Travel home was a grind. I was tired. Weary. Road worn.

As I neared my house there was a growing sense of anticipation and yet, hesitation. Had I been homesick? No, but yet I wanted to get home. Then again, re-entry was not always pleasant.

I walked in the door and was overcome by a sense of familiarity. Sound, smell, touch, sight. Then I was noticed. I was greeted, touched, accepted, loved. I felt belonging. Contentment. Happiness. At peace. Connected.

Your brand has an audience. Their days are grinds. They are weary. They are worn. How do they feel as they near your brand experience? How do they feel in the moment? What is your brand's emotional consequence?

When consumers interact with a brand, there is an emotional consequence. Brand failure, even in the most insignificant categories, can cause frustration, anger, even embarrassment. Brand success can lift spirits and turn a bad day around. What’s interesting is these emotional consequences are often not just directed at the brand, but at the user. Ever felt like a sucker for buying a brand? Ever felt more confident about yourself when using a brand?

As a brand builder, the goal is to marry your brand to a positive emotional experience that enhances the user’s day and their self opinion. In short, interaction with this brand makes me feel ______. So when I want to feel that way, I reach for the brand. This is the essence of the emotional benefit.

Unlike with functional benefits, it is often much easier to differentiate your brand with its emotional benefit. When I was young, Nike and Adidas were functionally marketed brands with little differentiation. Nike figured out the emotional benefit of running (and fitness in general) to its users, and the rest is history.

While functional benefit remains precedent to emotional benefit in my opinion, it’s the MARKETER that is typically the author of emotional benefit strategy. Net, this is where we earn our keep in brand construction.

The Unity of Freedom Has Never Relied on the Uniformity of Opinion (JFK).

INDIVISIBLE is a precious word that the Left and Right seem to ignore in their self-serving rhetoric. Civil discourse has been replaced with flatulent, garrulous braying. Personal gain over public progress. It's distasteful and has pushed many from the political process.

Just because politicians have a live microphone ...doesn't mean they speak for me. Same goes for the political talk-heads.

America is ultimately about unity and common cause; has been since our start. We stand united here in the United States. Together we have always been stronger. Have we lost track of this?

Let's start a new discussion that respects different views and seeks progress on our common problems. I think we understand each other's positions, how do we move forward? The unity of freedom has never relied on the uniformity of opinion (JFK).

America, Still the Shining City on a Hill.

NOTE: I wrote this little rant about the state of the American political process. But guess what? If you replace America with the name of your organization, I bet some of these points will hold true.

The Beginning of the World

I think marketing as we knew it has died. Drowned in a sea of technology that has fundamentally changed the way people interact with media and the advertising it contains.

I came of age in the prime of prime time. TV was king and all young marketers aspired to make 30 second commercials and blast the middle class into submission with zillions of GRP's. With rare exceptions, that is no longer a viable plan. The audience is just not there and when they are...they just don't care.

When the internet arrived most marketers took their tv strategy and reapplied it to banner ads. Lured with the potential of micro targeting, we poured our money into ads that framed the content that fueled the audience. Just like tv right? Wrong. The consumer had tasted freedom and they wanted no part of these ads. They learned to circumnavigate them, to not even "see" them...much less click on them. Seth Godin had it right years ago, it's a permission based medium and the consumer has the power.

So welcome to the new beginning. The birth of marketing on the Internet. The flood waters have receded and Noah is unpacking the ark. Shallow, tag line marketing didn't make the boat. What has survived is content. Real content. Stuff people want to read, watch and talk about. "Content is king" was a phrase fashioned to define how to draw traffic to a website in the late 90's. Well guess what? The phrase also applies to our marketing.

For decades we have lived as a parasite on media. The speed bump between programming. Those days are done. Marketing must become the programming. The paradigm is that we are now the broadcasters. Entertain, educate, engage or prepare for extinction.

It's with this conviction that I commissioned this campaign for a safety brand. Yes a boring safety brand. Please review here http://bulwark.com/451/ I'm proud of this work for a lot of reasons, but this morning, I am most proud of it because it is a step into the new world. The new frontier few are exploring.

Marketing is dead, long live marketing.

PS: Thanks to my friends at Fitzgerald + Company in Atlanta for helping make this strategy a reality (I'm talking to you Llneveldt)

Go Figure

Just the facts ma'am:

The US population is 311 million.
The top rated broadcast TV show typically has an audience of around 20 million.
The top rated cable show typically has an audience of 7 million.
The largest daily newspaper is the WSJ with 2 million circulation.
The largest paid magazine is Better Homes and Garden with circ of 7.5 million.
The largest radio audience is Rush Limbaugh at 15 million weekly.

The great American mass audience...is now a myth. Collectively we have very few unifiers in media. Yet we keep paying to play on these mass vehicles, and try to build "mass" brands. Godin is right, it's about tribes and niches.

Coca Cola has 40 million "likes" on facebook. Is it a community? No, but the 'like' gives Coke posting privilege on the "likers" wall. Twice the reach of the typical #1 show on tv...and with prudence they can engage them repeatedly weekly for months, even years. At very little cost.

What is the value of that community?

One spot on American Idol reaches 20 million people and costs about $400k. No the editorial context is not the same...but then fb has twice the reach and marginal cost.

How can we not be spending LOTS of time learning how to build these communities? Learning to engage in a way that eliminates media cost? It's not free...you have to have content...but it's dramatically less than paid media.

Nobody has all the answers, but we all have to be asking the questions.

Higher Motives

If we treat social media as another place for transactional commerce ...we're missing its potential... and we're missing why people are drawn to our brands in the social environment in the first place.

People don't go to facebook to shop. Yes... for us there is a commerce motive...but we can't be too heavy handed in that pursuit.

The potential of social media is authentic interaction.
The hope of authentic interaction is relationship.
The benefit of relationship is empathy.
The power of empathy is relevance.
The promise relevance is preference.
The payoff for preference is repeated purchase.

It's kind of like sex.
You can't let your wife see your motive, better yet, have a higher motive.

And the Question Is....

What question are you trying to answer?

When you ask a question a natural vacuum forms. Questions beg answers. Questions inspire thought, but questions can ruin resolve. Questions bring clarity, but questions can easily distract. Questions spark understanding, but questions can just as easily frustrate.

As a leader, you get to ask the questions. Your questions set the agenda for the work of your team, of your organization, of yourself. Be very careful with questions.

First, don't ask too many questions of your team.

The fastest way to paralyze an organization and turn it inward is for leadership to ask too many questions. 20 questions is a game - not leadership. Show some insight. Show some discipline. Show some pacing. It's your right to ask questions, exercise in moderation.

Second, direct questions to the right person.

Ask the wrong person, get the wrong answer. Ask the wrong person, generate a lot of unnecessary effort. If you don't have enough insight into your organization to know who to ask, perhaps you should start by asking who is in the best position to answer the question. I've had bosses who think it's clever to ask several different people to answer the same list of questions. I'm sure this occasionally generates a novel idea, but at what cost?

Finally, ask insightful questions.

Any hack management consultant can ask big broad questions of the organization. How can we reduce costs? How can we generate more revenues? Ask a big vague question, get a big vague answer. Ask a big vague question, send everyone on a wild goose chase. Show some insight into the business and keep your team on strategy by asking insightful, directed questions. How do we reduce Asian sourcing costs for the outer shell of the XJ product line? As an employee, this tells me you have a grip on cost components for the XJ line and an informed opinion that we are either overpaying in Asia, or that the parts from Asia are the lever for improving line profitability.

Most teams face two or three critical questions that, if answered correctly, could lift them to the next level. As a leader, one of your most important roles is getting those questions framed appropriately and answered.

So what questions are you (and your team) trying to answer in 2012?

Ideas are the Water Supply of Business

If the water supply is contaminated, we all die of thirst or worse. Without safe water, the land becomes barren and eventually we all must move on.

Ideas are the water supply of business.

Businesses without new ideas stagnate, stop growing, and are surpassed by competition. Creative industries and occupations seem to get this more than others. If you create advertising or write songs for a living, you understand that the idea is everything. It's not enough to be ABLE to do the work, you need inspiration, an idea, that animates your skill. It's true in most every occupation. A supply chain that doesn't evolve and improve is soon uncompetitive. A salesperson that never alters their pitch, finds it less effective over time. New ways of doing things.... start with the idea. It's common ground for every function in a business. Enough, I get it, so what?

Let's start with the idea management. As a leader, do you treat ideas with the respect they deserve? Do you have a process to identify, capture and nurture them? Do you place the responsibility on the employee to bring them out, or do you seek out ideas, pulling them out of the organization as if they were buried treasure? Perhaps you just relegate them to the Idea Box, where they can be handily stored on a shelf and avoided?

Now about your "Idea Generators". As a leader, you soon come to learn that while everyone adds value, not everyone adds ideas. Ideas can come from anywhere, but in my experience, they don't. They usually come from a small, consistent minority. This presents two opportunities. First you need to act to get more people creating ideas. There are myriad reasons why they don't, you need to understand and address those reasons. (There are some people who will never generate ideas for you, but lets assume a lot more could.) Second, you need to understand who your key "idea generators" are and make sure they are adequately paid, resourced, energized, and appreciated. Create the mental and physical environment that is conducive to idea creation. These people make up the water supply from which everyone will drink, shouldn't they be treated a bit differently?

Finally, on culture. Let's face it, most organizations resist change. There seems to be some unintended conspiracy in every organization between policy, folklore and fact to thwart ideas, slow progress, and frustrate idea generators. Left unchecked, the resistance wins, the ideas die, the idea generators leave. Death by committee, death by review, death by policy. The opportunity as a leader is to be proactive in creating an idea culture. A meritocracy where ideas and idea generators are cherished and status quo is treated with a healthy disrespect.

Ideas are the water supply of business. Protect them, nurture them, multiply them...then drink deeply.

Innovation & Culture

I have been reading and discussing innovation a lot lately. Most writers seem to feel that innovation is a skill, like typing or swimming, that can be taught to anyone. I find parallels in this discussion and ones on leadership. There are those that think leadership can be taught too. I don't.

I draw a distinction between innovators and people with innovation skills. Same with leaders. I know lots of people that have been trained in leadership, but I know very few leaders. For me the distinction lies in predisposition. It's the why, not the how.

The innovative people I know have been innovative their entire lives. They seek to innovate because of some internal itch that is never content with status quo. Their motor seems to be fueled by the never ending search for better or different. They just look at the world from a different filter. Some do this in flashy, outlier modes while others just quietly go about making their piece of the world better. Innovative people and businesses mentally live out of a suitcase...because they know that they won't be staying at status quo for very long.

Think about your team. Hopefully you have some folks that are wired this way. Always chasing better, never quite satisfied. And they aren't driven by an innovation program or workshop or by you, they are driven this way because that's who they are.

Same is true for leaders. They start leading when they are young and never stop. They are most comfortable leading. Is it power or control? Who knows, but it is a given that when leaders face leadership voids....they step forward and lead. No hesitation, no fear, no indecision. You know why leaders have great leadership skills? Because they have been leading and learning since childhood.

I'd like to propose that business culture works this way too. Innovative businesses exist because it is part of the DNA of the organization. Innovation happens naturally in these organizations. Continuous improvement, higher risk profiles, trying and failing frequently, a healthy contempt for status quo are assumed. And guess what, these organizations attract and hold innovative people that feel right at home in the culture.

Unfortunately the opposite is true too. If your business lacks innovation, chances are your culture lacks innovation, even penalizes it. And guess what, it tends to thwart and frustrate innovative people.

This post isn't meant to attack innovation skills training, but to raise the issue of culture. As you chase innovation have you taken a hard look at your culture? Have you talked to your innovators? Perhaps the best thing you can do as a leader is not train, but get out of their way. Changing culture is hard. Have you identified the formal and informal cultural norms that are holding innovation back in your business?

PS: Going to innovation training doesn't make someone innovative, anymore than going to McDonald's makes them a hamburger (credit Keith Green).

Find Yourself in this Quote

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." President Theodore Roosevelt

Which will you be today? Critic? Fighter? Bystander?

B2B Buyers: Just Consumers at Work?

Most of us make dozens of seemingly irrational or illogical choices every day. Quiet acts of defiance or indulgence or indifference or laziness or just habitual behavior that cost us time and/or money. Why? Because the vast majority of our choices go unexamined or unchallenged. Many consumer brands live off this irrationality. The candy section at the checkout, infomercial weight loss plans, parking in the handicapped lane, a second cookie, another hour of TV, and on and on.

Now what if suddenly all those decisions were suddenly open for review or examination. What if your spouse reviewed all your little irrational decisions and gave you a grade.

"Lets see David, your choice to stop at Starbucks on the way to work vs drinking the free coffee at the office cost you 23 minutes and $3.49. How often do you do this? Twice a week? That's $350 and almost 4o hours a year (a work week!). Do you really think that's a good investment of our money and your time?"

If we came under this scrutiny, it's inevitable that we would start becoming much more rational in our choices. Examination, or the potential for examination, changes the dynamic of the purchase behavior.

I have recently transitioned into B2B marketing. While many of the B2C marketing precepts apply, I am finding the "threat of examination" as a major factor in buying decisions. The potential that you will have to justify your choice to your boss, makes people behave much more rationally. Facts and figures carry extra weight. Emotional appeals carry less. The insight here is not that people behave more rationally in a B2B context...but WHY they behave more rationally.

Does that mean there is no room for emotional benefits in B2B marketing? No. In fact, I would say that there is huge competitive opportunity in most every B2B category in more emotive branding. But it does mean that emotional appeals must be combined with solid functional benefits. And the easier it is for your buyer to "rationally justify" their decision to their boss, the greater your chances for success.

Yes B2B buyers are human, "just consumers at work" and susceptible to many B2C strategies, but don't make the mistake of thinking B2B buyer behavior is identical to B2C. We behave differently when someone is watching or when we fear they might be.

That's what I'm thinking... how about you?