Seth Godin London 2009: Marketing Lessons On Remarkableness, Scarcity & Revolution

Last week I attended the Seth Godin talk in London. Seth’s a respected leader in the field of marketing and all things web, and this was a rare opportunity to hear him speak. Staged in the grand setting of Church House behind Westminster Abbey this was a great event and I felt three points stood out for marketers which I’ve paraphrased below.

"Being remarkable" – It sounds obvious, ‘remarkable’ meaning being worthy of making a remark, but how many brands, experiences, products or services are truly remarkable. Many companies before entering into the social media space such as blogs, Twitter, forums or Facebook should take time to think about whether their companies products, services or the brand itself is worthy of customer remarks. Make what you market excellent and people will talk, otherwise the review and forum sections on your newly launched website will be empty

"Scarcity versus ubiquity" – Think about your industry, what has become commonplace, a commodity or ubiquitous; and what is rare, difficult to find, uncommon. Then think about how you market and how you charge for those products and services – a Blog is ubiquitous and common, so make that free – whereas a good speaking event is rare, so you can command a high fee. A good example of this in the entertainment marketplace is Live Nation who have understood that mp3 and file sharing has made recorded music ubiquitous and free, and have focused their business model on making money from what in their industry is rare, outstanding, uncommon and valuable – live music performances.

"If we’re in the middle of a industrial and marketing revolution, what are the new rules?" - During the day, Seth highlighted a vast number of traditional marketing rules were changing, highlighting recent changes brought on by social technologies and the low costs of commerce through the web. This was food for thought, but as well as understanding which rules were now broken, he suggested those who will do well through the recession will be the ones who build new marketing rules, particularly how companies can lead customer tribes.

See Green When Out Of The Red

This week Google launched Google Power Meter which gives consumers detailed information on their power consumption throughout the day by displaying data from smart meters. It's aim is to highlight areas where consumers can cut back, and help them track and monitor this

Google Power Meter is a great example of a significant trend. Until the economic situation worsened, last year saw a growing demand for 'green' or Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting. Historically this was driven by multinationals such as Shell and Anglo American who use greater transparency as a way of driving energy efficiency within the organisation and informing stakeholders. But in 2008 we saw detailed CSR information being used for marketing purposes, with pioneers such as Tesco putting carbon usage data on individual products.

Price and brand promotion is king at the moment, but will green be important to marketers when the recession is over? Some companies have fallen into the trap of greenwashing, a term for using general PR statements to pay lip service to green initiatives, but CSR reporting is going to be important because of the comparisons if will provide between rival products, services and companies. Online shoppers will be able to sort a basket of items on their carbon footprint, or compare a manufacturers energy usage or a companies CSR achievements.

If CSR and transparency is going to be an area is differentiation, and the companies who can show the most transparent accurate data gaining advantage, how do you get there? Three steps...

1. Have a ‘real’ CSR policy – Greenwashing is a waste of time and can damage your brand. A genuine focused CSR philosophy with clear targets will bring benefits in areas such as energy saving (which is just one area of CSR) and resonate with consumers and shareholders
2. Plan for a long term project - Reporting on this scale can't be achieved quickly and it's a journey – work with everyone from your suppliers through to customers to bring together this data
3. Get data in front of the public early - You shouldn't need to produce a full set of CSR reports before making them available to the public, pick a metric that your customers care about such as electricity usage and carbon emmisions and grow from there.

So in the current market when many are looking to cut costs and innovate, better CSR reporting can save money and improve your competitive standing.

Look Before You Tweet

Microbloggin’ uber application Twitter has caught a lot of press attention lately and many businesses are wondering how to enter this space. My interest in Twitter has fired up again after seeing a few colleagues using the awesome Tweetdeck. After a bit of setting up (thanks Colm) you can feel the potential of ‘real time web’ technology come alive, from keeping in touch, monitoring buzz topics through to searching for information and people.

Or keeping up to date on celebrities who happen to be stuck in lifts.

For corporations the proposition can seem attractive. An opportunity to foster an Apple like cult in your customer base by feeding them with the latest releases? An option to launch innovative marketing strategies? Engage in one to one dialogues? Respond to angry tweets? On the surface your brand could appear fast moving and progressive.

But corporate brands have a turbulent history when things get a bit social and Twitter is no different. Big corporates like control, uniformity, clear messaging and co-ordination. But this is hard to achieve across thousands of employees who may be Tweeting on every aspect of your business and have different views.

You could have a unified Twitter presence but that would be dry, lack personality and disclude many individuals across the organisation who could help bring the brand to life.

So what’s the answer?

I was reminded of Wally Ollins and his wisdom in ‘On Brand’ on how there should be a shift in thinking around marketing to improve the focus within the organisation itself, in contrast to marketing exclusively to customers or the trade. Under an achingly cheesy slogan of “Bonding, as much as branding” he suggested brand marketing is as important to those within the organisation as it is to traditional customers, particularly in service industries.

Is Ollins right? I think so. Paying attention to getting a true and honest brand message that all members of the business can understand and believe in pays off. It demands less control than an official policy or guidelines for employees using social technologies and lets them be creative and more human, which customers will in the end appreciate and engage with more.

So instead of laying down a corporate Twitter policy, or a unified Twitter account for the brand, think about who in your organisation could be Tweeting and how your marketing teams can support them in being ‘on brand’ when its relevant, and importantly, being themselves.