momorantings

Many people are commenting about the staggering innumeracy that features on today's cover of the UK's largest free newspaper. Now, they could be suggesting that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts and that the more you eat the more delicious it becomes, but that sort of counting only works in effectiveness awards papers. But it is important and not just because it will get passed around the internet. It's important because the people who usually are numerate i.e the finance department will yet again use it to diminish the credibility of those expensive arty marketers. Marketing is not just about selling. It's about understanding business. If you don't understand numbers, you cant understand business and you should get your coat.

A professor of mine while in graduate school at CalArts advised us that if we could envision ourselves doing anything else, we should get out now. He was very blunt. Life in the theater was hard. Long hours, low pay and full of personal sacrifice. The past couple of years have been very difficult for the arts. State arts commissions are being eliminated , Tony Award-winning regional theaters are going out of business , corporate sponsorships are drying up and nationally renowned arts education programs are disappearing. If life in the theater was hard ten years ago when I was in school, it must be damn near impossible today in comparison, given the new realities of the "post-global economic crisis" world. Being now a decade into the profession, I have found that most of my colleagues have seriously debated leaving the arts all together (and several have). And who could blame them? In fact, I find those that have never longed for a more stable livelihood a little suspect. Las

I've written before about the importance of eliminating mistakes rather than looking for the next big thing. It sounds negative, but I still contend it's not about being risk-averse, it's about avoiding delusion. All too often, marketers' career ambition leads them to seek the heinous wow factor. The intention is to startle and dazzle, but I'm not convinced that customers are looking for that. And anyway, that's not what they truly absorb. It may temporarily blind them, but then their eyes clear and they notice the minor irritations that are foisted upon them day in day out. It is those irritations that build into their true sense of your "brand". To eliminate those negatives is to be truly customer-centric via the provision of enduring improvement. So, as Doc Searls restated it recently, "can you identify your core incompetencies?"

I don't know if it was just a British thing, but I remember when people used to ask "what make is it?" especially when they were talking about vehicles. It also applied to white goods, electrical products and, I think, clothes. It was a question filled with aspiration, but it must also have reflected a belief that the "maker" was an important part of the equation. I don't know when that attitude changed. I'm not convinced it has. Going back to thinking about makes and marques would be a terrific antidote to the pompous entitlement that pervades so much skin-deep branding.