Who are we kidding?

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As I was getting out the Morton Salt container I noticed something on the label I hadn’t noticed before.

Join.  Share.  Connect.  Find us at Facebook.com/Morton Salt

Mind you, I love salt.  Call me a huge salt fan, in fact.  An early adopter:  Fleur de sel, Himalayan, you name it.  We have five kinds of salt at home right now.  I’ve given salt as a gift as recently as this week.  Having low blood pressure makes me happy, so I can enjoy salt without guilt.

But I don’t want to befriend it, Like it on Facebook or follow it on Twitter.

The persistent Meatball Sundae

Five years ago, Seth Godin published a book about the disconnect between old and new marketing. The title, Meatball Sundae, comes from the idea of slapping all the fun, new tactical goodies of marketing (like social media) on top of basic products that may still be profitable but don’t attract word-of-mouth (like salt).  Each is fine by itself, but not together.

Five years later, this is truer than ever.  We know more—and we should know better.

Over at the Morton’s Salt Facebook page, they’re promoting Safe-T-Pet Ice Melt, offering a $1 donation to the ASPCA for every Like.  Over 35,000 animal lovers have dutifully complied.  Are these folk breathlessly waiting for brand updates via RSS?  Um, no.

There’s a poll on the right way to eat corn-on-the-cob—flanked by a picture of Safe-T-Pet Ice Melt.  Yum!

My Morton’s Iodized container sports the ubiquitous pink ribbon and features info about donating to breast cancer research.  No mention of this on FB, or even on their website.  Of course salt lasts forever, so this promotion may have been done years ago.  Hence the generic invitation to visit Facebook, most likely.

On the Morton Salt website, the Community Outreach links include a short, slightly odd list ranging from the Kiwanis to United Way and UNICEF.  Nary a one to stir the pulse here.  Good, solid, salt-of-the-earth stuff, sure.  But buzz fodder?

Pillow talk for brands

When Samuel Johnson, the famed 18th century British man of letters, was on his deathbed, a visiting friend was trying to help him be comfortable.  The friend kept adjusting Johnson’s pillow.  Johnson thanked him, saying: “That will do—all that a pillow can do.”

Where would we be without pillows?  Or Morton Salt?  Life would be less comfy and tasty, for sure.  But a brand, like a pillow, has both a function and limits.   Respecting these limits is to respect your audience.  That’s the starting point of real marketing, and the beginning of wisdom.

Are you a Yipee or a Yikes?

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Good news in my town yesterday.  The Boston Globe reported that Wegmans, the grocery retailer with a cult-like following, will open a store in Newton, MA.

There have been a lot of vacant storefronts around here, even in this privileged Boston suburb.  Every time we see a business preparing to open, we get a little excited.  Could something fun and wonderful be coming to town?

But it’s usually a bank. Yuck.  Another (bleep) bank, just what we need.

At best, a new bank branch will trigger a mild flicker of convenience for its current customers.  For the rest of us, it’s Opportunity Lost.  More same old.  More corporate blandeur.

Yipee!

The arrival of Wegmans is something to cheer. Already I can feel my future spending patterns shifting.  This isn’t the first time.

Over the years, living in various East Coast suburbs (NYC, DC, Boston) I’ve watched my own grocery shopping evolve.  At first it was just supermarkets, supplemented by a produce store if there was one.  Then Costco arrived.  (Yay!) Then the blessed day when Trader Joes moved East.  (Yipee!)  Then Whole Foods and its prior incarnations.  (Yay!)  Today relatively few of our grocery dollars go to a traditional supermarket these days, and we’re far from unique.

I’ve been to a Wegmans only a couple of times, and I think they’re nice but maybe a little overrated.  I’m thinking: Yay, if not quite Yipee.

Yikes!

Down the street from the new Wegmans site is a renovated Shaws supermarket.  Near other upscale shopping in tony Chestnut Hill, it opened with great fanfare a year or so ago.  To be sure, it’s a big improvement over the small, antiquated store it replaced.  But basically it’s a Yawn.

To Shaws, however, the advent of Wegmans is a definite Yikes!  Players like Shaws, whether products or services, individual brands or whole companies, live in fear of the Yays and Yipees.  With good reason.  They’re perfectly fine, until something compelling comes along.

What happens when you show up?

When you’re honest with yourself (rare enough in corporate life!), are people genuinely happy when you show up: on shelf, with a new product? With a new service or outlet?  If not, what would it take?

Left-brain thinking gets you efficiency and operational excellence.  It can make your numbers.  But right-brain thinking wins hearts.  You need both.  Don’t you want to be a Yay or a Yipee?  It’s imagination, empathy and inspiration that will get you there.  Don’t be a Yuck, Yawn or Yikes.

What’s love got to do with it? Steve Jobs and Netflix

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Let’s talk about something that almost never comes up in a business discussion: Love.

Yes, that many-splendored thing.  Emotions seldom arise in business (even branding) discussions.  Love least of all, perhaps because it’s so rarely relevant.   But sometimes true love happens.  When it does it’s remarkable, worth our attention.

Two recent events brought love to mind: Steve Jobs’s death and Netflix’ clumsy self-destruction.  Both offer lessons.

Steve Jobs: Unforgettable

Four days after Steve Jobs’s death I was in Palo Alto and stopped by the Apple Store, a few blocks from his home.  It was deeply moving.  Store windows were covered with Post-Its conveying heartfelt affection and gratitude.  Flowers, toys and pictures on the sidewalk transformed the storefront into a memorial.

Two good friends told me spontaneously they wanted to write to Jobs’s family.  One of them has never owned an Apple product.  Another friend said he will never forget the exact moment he heard of Jobs’s death.

This is what love looks like. We were deeply glad he was in the world and grief-stricken at his early death.  We may not have wanted him as our boss any more than we would have wanted to model for Degas, but he left a legacy of world-changing impact and beauty.  Love like this is extremely rare, but it is very real.

Netflix: You can’t take love for granted

In its early days, Netflix also inspired real love.  The brand came up spontaneously in conversations at work, among friends.  As I mailed a video at the post office, a postman was moved to tell me how Netflix had transformed life for his elderly housebound mother. Netflix let us browse in our bunny slippers, create our own obscure film festivals, dawdle without dread.

As time went on, we got used to Netflix.  Ardor turned to affection.  Managing our queues became part of life we didn’t think too much about, but fondness remained.  The little red envelopes dotting our homes evoked friendly feelings.

Then everything changed.  As most know, a few months ago Netflix raised its pricing 60% with no explanation.  It announced it was splitting into two separate companies (DVDs and streaming), leaving customers to manage two separate accounts and queues.  Then a CEO non-apology, after a huge public outcry and subscriber losses.  Finally it reversed itself, remaining a single company.

Bye-bye love

I happened to have six conversations about Netflix’s new strategy and approach before the company’s value crashed.  Five MBAs and a Stanford PhD—a sharp bunch.  Opinion split down the middle.

Three rousingly approved, citing the company’s Bold Approach, their Willingness to Take Risks and Reinvent their Business Model, even if they lost some customers.  Supporters included two heads of innovation at huge, multi-billion-dollar companies and a former management consultant.  They spoke in bloodless, abstract terms about models, strategies, technologies.

The other three were completely appalled, like the rest of us.  They talked mainly about people, about the impact on customers, the impact on themselves as customers.

By now Netflix has lost maybe $12 billion in market value.  People 1, Abstractions 0.

As I thought about the detractors’ responses, Dan Ariely’s book Perfectly Irrational came to mind.  He wrote of the delicate balance between social and market norms.  In a relationship based on market norms, changes in terms and pricing, however unwelcome or irritating, are taken in stride.  But if the relationship has been cultivated even partly as a social exchange, violation of social norms can trigger anger or betrayal.

Yes, of course we knew Netflix was a business.  But we were also friends, treated each other well.   In exchange for low prices and great service we spread the word and let those DVDs sit around for a few weeks or months.  It worked, we thought.

“Boo!  Boo! …You had true love and you…treated it like garbage.”
–The Princess Bride

I wanna know what love is

What inspired our love of Apple and Netflix?  Here are a few ingredients.  Both:

  • Made important things in our lives easy and fun.
  • Rescued us from the tyranny of a rigid, unfeeling autocrat with a monopoly.
  • Empowered us, giving us meaningful choices and control.
  • Were lively and passionate about what they were bringing us.
  • Were friendly and accessible, not corporate.

Love over…and over

Steve Jobs kept doing it.  Time after time he invented new ways to expand what we could do with elegance and ease.  Whatever Apple’s internal state, he made sure we knew he was first and foremost in the business of enchantment and beauty.

Love is the ultimate permission asset.  Amazing things can happen when you treasure and nurture that love.  Money can’t buy you love, but love can get you money.  Apple is the world’s largest company by market cap.  It has only a shade over 30 products.  Barring bad new products or Netflix-like emotional idiocy, Apple is likely to remain one of the world’s top companies for a good long while.

Reed Hastings, Netflix’s founder, has a degree in mathematics.  But he failed at human calculus.  Consumer reaction was utterly predictable—and preventable.  He had love, then strong affection, and he squandered it.  An ounce of empathy might have saved billions.  These days Hastings is likely to be humming “Yesterday.”  Don’t let this happen to you.

Amazon: Disaster averted?

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In the weeks before Steve Jobs’ death, if you clicked on Amazon.com you saw Jeff Bezos’ open letter to customers, which began as follows:

Dear Customers,

There are two types of companies: those that work hard to charge customers more, and those that work hard to charge customers less. Both approaches can work. We are firmly in the second camp.

Thankfully, Amazon had the sense to take this down when Steve Jobs died.  It was unworthy of a leading company, and Jeff Bezos is lucky it wasn’t posted longer.

Because, of course, these words were an unsubtle broadside against Apple.  Amazon’s new tablet computer, Kindle Fire, priced at $199, is clearly cheaper than the iPad ($499 and up).  But Bezos wrapped this pricing differential into a larger Us vs. Them story, taking on Apple the company.

Bezos’ mistake and the right-brain reasons why:

Emotional idiocy

People love Apple.  Even before the outpouring of grief and affection at Jobs’ death, millions of people were (and still are) passionate about Apple.  And they’re Amazon’s customers, too!  What’s the point of dissing them?  Self-righteousness is not only unattractive—it’s emotional idiocy to make customers feel bad.

Connecting the dots: Ugly patterns

Yes, Amazon is about low prices, Apple isn’t.  But Amazon is implying superiority.  Sure you want to go there, Amazon?  Consider the many ways this may backfire:

Goliath comes to town—and state

Suppressing state revenues

85% of Amazon customers don’t pay sales tax.  This price advantage over brick-and-mortar retailers deprives state coffers of millions of much-needed dollars that could be paying teachers, firemen and more.

Reduced job creation

Amazon’s efficiency relies on a small labor force.  According to a reputable study, for every million dollars in sales, Walmart hires five workers and Amazon hires one.  A huge percentage of Mac- or iPad-owners have met real people at Apple stores.  How many of you have ever met someone who worked for Amazon?

Ugly muscle

Amazon’s expensive state-by-state campaigns to avoid collecting sales taxes makes them look like all those other corporate loophole-seekers.  Again, more Goliath than David.

Big Brother and the Bullies

Predatory pricing

Amazon’s prices actually go up when their algorithms detect out-of-stocks elsewhere.  This clashes big-time with their Low Price Warrior image and makes them look creepy and insidious.  Do they really want more people to take a closer look at this?

Undue influence

Nancy Koehn of Harvard Business School, in a recent Bloomberg article, indicated that “Amazon may be getting big enough for people to finally start considering the ramifications — for towns, shopping centers, and jobs — of a world dominated by online buying.  ‘Americans get very nervous about centralized power that – affects their communities,’ she says. ‘We get a little bit nervous about bigness, yet we want the convenience and the – pricing and the material plenty that bigness allows.'”

Saved from itself?

Clearly, Amazon is a smart and savvy company with lots of enthusiastic customers.  But there is a kind of Walmart-like arrogance and blindness in Bezos’ letter.  History, literature, and business alike are filled with examples of greatness brought down by pettiness and ego.  Steve Jobs’ death is a loss to the world, but it may be a bright spot for Amazon–not in removing a rival, but allowing Amazon to step away from a foolish and ignoble bit of corporate hubris.

Jet Blue: A whiff of Icarus

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I admire Jet Blue the brand, and I like the airline.  Jet Blue has done a terrific job at creating a distinctive brand and generating customer loyalty.  Many adore Jet Blue.  One savvy business traveler I know flies nothing else, if he can help it.  But I’m not sure I love Jet Blue as much as I’m supposed to–or quite as much as they love themselves.

Plenty to like

As a brand, JetBlue is distinctive and memorable.  Customer-centric focus permeates the experience, starting with an easy website and low fares.  Check-in is streamlined and orderly.  Roomy seats, DirectTV and ample free sodas and snacks make the in-flight experience pleasant.  Crews tend to be affable, real people who seem to enjoy their work.  Jet Blue’s friendly, irreverent advertising complements the feeling of difference vs. ordinary airlines.

Indeed, with two cross-country trips on United vs. Jet Blue within two weeks, I could experience the difference first-hand.

United in outrage

United left no opportunity to irritate customers untapped, from a clunky website with relentless upselling (reprised afresh at airport check-in kiosks) to a cumbersome and anger-provoking boarding experience. Predictably, United’s steep checked baggage fees created a carry-on nightmare.  I actually heard a customer yell “I hate United!” while we were stalled in the jetway, as dozens of passengers were forced to gate-check bags unexpectedly. By contrast, my Nerd Bird Boston/San Jose trip on Jet Blue was a breeze.

Post-flight letdown: The self-satisfaction survey

Bathos:  an effect of anticlimax created by an unintentional lapse in mood from the sublime to the trivial or ridiculous.  –New Oxford American Dictionary

I enjoy everything about Jet Blue…until I get their little e-mail survey.  Whoever writes their survey has been so thoughtful, they’ve even invented new happy faces to give us extra options to rave about them!

Were we a Wow?

Or merely Outstanding?

Smug is ugly.  And entirely unnecessary.  In Greek mythology, Icarus ignored instructions not to fly too close to the sun–and plunged to his death.  Hubris has led to the fall of many a company as well.  Jet Blue would do well to bask in the glow of genuine customer delight, without fueling its own mythmaking.