The Morning Light

Did you know Aggie Maroon is actually an official PMS (no, that stands for Pantone Matching System – a printing ink color standard) color? It is. A few days ago I was suggesting to a client that we use the color orange for something or other. He smiled and reminded me that half of all Texans would be offended.

If I hadn’t encountered this before, I would have been truly puzzled. But I did indeed know exactly what he meant. You can divide Texas into two camps: burnt orange and maroon. Maroon for those who go or went to Texas A&M, and burnt orange of the University of Texas. And somehow it’s all tied into football. But that a topic for another post.

Once I prepared a series of campaign postcards for an attorney who was running for local bar association president. She insisted that we use maroon as the main color on one and orange on the other. We didn’t want to leave anyone out.

While I suspect this may be a bigger deal in Texas than anywhere else, I can think of another two-color division that’s gone a bit more viral. Red states and blue states. Thanks to CNN’s election result charts from a few years back, states are now divided into either of two colors. Never before have states been so easily distinguished from one another.

If this red/blue thing had gone away after that election, then fine, it would have been just a way that a news network chose to illustrate election results on-air. But it went viral before the word viral went viral. It had legs. Viral legs. Red and blue are now part of the official vernacular of political analysts, campaign workers, reporters, bloggers, and ordinary wonks everywhere.

Who knew? And what about colored ribbons? I see pink, I think of breast cancer victims, not little girls’ dresses. Yellow ribbons are tied around old oak trees and have been since the 1940s. Ferrari has its own red. Chase bank has been trying to brand a blue by airing commercials that are black and white except for the blue chase card. More and more companies are using this trick now that they decided it’s cool. Target stores has tried to brand the color red.

Some people want their presence on earth to be immortalized in the name of a newly discovered star, planet, or moon in a far-away galaxy.

Not me. I want a color, a particular shade of something or other. I like orange and use it on my Morninglight Marketing web site. (It’s not burnt orange). But I don’t want orange as my personal brand color.

Hmmm. Maybe something akin to periwinkle blue. I like periwinkle because it’s an odd color. periwinkle is to blue what salmon is to pink – just a bit off-center. I have a friend who had a “salmon” sofa once. He’s a bit off-center, too (meant in a very good way). So if there were a color called “Peter,” what would it be. Ferrari red, A&M maroon, periwinkle peter. Works for me.

QR codes. I’ve played with creating one. I’ve read how wonderful they are. Marketers and advertisers  jumped on them as the latest, coolest thing, and they are popping up everywhere. I’ve even created one with my own contact information. But I’ve always had the nagging feeling that they are a mostly solution looking for a problem. Will people really whip out their smart phones, find the scanner app, and scan the QR code on the blue jeans ad to see what they will get?

Here’s a great article by Sean Cummings on iMedia Connection called “Why the QR Code is Failing.” Sean doesn’t blame the technology, the tool. He blames the people using it. I actually wonder if he goes far enough. Sure, the way they’re being used is generally pointless. But do QR codes really have potential for marketers, even if used intelligently and creatively? I’m not sure.

Read Sean’s article HERE and see what you think.

I wonder what scanning this will do?

And have a great Thursday!

Church signs just ain't what they used to be.

“Happy People Are Broken.” That’s what the lit-up sign outside the massive Second Baptist Church on Woodway Road in Houston said yesterday. I went back this morning to get a photo, but they had changed it to something more administrative. Since I can’t presume that the belief expressed in that sentence is part of official Baptist theology, I have to think something else is going on. And what that is seems pretty obvious.

It’s a teaser. It’s designed to get people asking “WTF?” (Baptists may express this using some other acronym.) The point, I presume, is to get you to come in on Sunday and find out what that sign actually meant, which was surely not what it says. Thus, dear friends, it’s a marketing ploy. Not a new one, mind you. It smacks a bit of the old bait-and-switch, doesn’t it?

So I had two reactions. My first was horror. How could anyone say that? Why would anyone say that? It’s awful. Let’s get these folks back on their meds before they hurt someone. I wanted to run in and find the pastor and ask him what was so wrong in his life that he would allow such a sign on his big megabucks church. Then I had the “aha!” moment, the one where you realize how stupid you are. If I went looking for the pastor, I’d get a cheerful pat on the back and a loving look and be told to return Sunday for the true meaning, which, no doubt, would include the rest of the sentence. Something like “Happy people are broken unless their happiness comes through Jesus” – or something like that.

That’s when I had my second reaction kicked in. What about this sort of marketing? You communicate something clearly offensive in the hope to lure in curious passers-by.  It reminds me a little (just a little, really) of the tactic often used by furniture stores, appliance stores, and car dealerships on tv ads: be so loud and annoying that people remember your name. OK, it’s not really the same thing, but I was reminded of the technique – a technique I never liked, no matter how much the cash registers may ring.

My respect for mega-churches has never been very high, since they seem more like big business than anything else. But this church has perhaps achieved a new low. I have more respect for the little church with the sign in the picture above than for this one; at least they’re honest.

My questions:

1) Is what the Second Baptist Church did ethical?
2) Is it good (i.e., effective) marketing?
3) If it’s not ethical, but it doesn’t really hurt anyone, and it is effective, is it wrong?

My answers: No, No, and Yes. Anyone else want to chime in?

P.S. The signs outside religious institutions have taken on a social and political role of their own of late. What do you think about that?

If I still worked there, I’d have been fired today for asking the CEO why his company is making lots of money in spite of the fact that it doesn’t care much about its clients. The guy and his crew violate just about every rule of good marketing, such as failing to build client relationships, suing clients at every opportunity, spamming them, providing poor service, and the list goes on. Did I mention that whenever they have a marketing manager or director who cares, that person has a short shelf life? And yet, I hear they’re having one of their best financial years ever.

I really do know the answer, of course. This company has a large national sales staff (they call them BDs) that manages to find lots of fresh clients whom they can work with once and then never again worry much about. As long as the pond remains well stocked with prospects, they can pull out fish after fish, take a bite, and throw the rest back. And it won’t matter because by the time the pond’s been over-fished and there’s nothing left, the owners and investors will have made their money and can move on to their next big idea.

So, this is a viable business model, right. If it’ll keep you going long enough for you to meet your financial goals, and if you don’t care about the wake of pissed off clients and disgruntled former employees you leave behind, then who’s to say it’s not a valid approach?

I do. Lots of people do. I’d say it’s a head-on collision with ethical behavior. But, as a cultural relativist, and knowing that there have been societies where it was perfectly acceptable, if not downright mandated, to eat your enemies or sacrifice your daughters to Kong, maybe I shouldn’t rush to judgment.

I’m so confused.

I forget just what triggered it – something I saw on TV, or a news article I read. But the thought occurred to me that there are a fair number of words that have come to us from the world of illegal drugs that are now in common use in completely different contexts.

Here are a few examples:

Fix – used to refer to heroin use, but now it’s used for any craving, e.g., “I need my chocolate fix.”

Jones – once referred to heroin addiction, now it’s any addiction, as in “I got a bad jones for you, baby.”

Busted – once referred primarily to drug arrests, now it’s any flavor of being captured or caught, e.g., “My dad busted me for driving the Bentley without permission.”

Hit – a “hit” once meant primarily a drag on a joint or pipe of weed. Now it’s anything, e.g., “Let me have a hit off your ginger ale.”

Narc – used to refer to a narcotics law enforcement officer. Now it’s usually a verb, not a noun, and it simply means “tell on,” as in “He narc’d on me for cutting school.”

Rush – once referred to a certain drug-induced feeling – especially from LSD, like things were rushing at you or past you very quickly, like a strong wind. Now, it’s used for anything exciting and often used in commercials, e.g., “Feel the rush as you step inside your new Toyota.”

I know there are lots more, but these are the ones that came to mind.

Why is this interesting? I think it’s because every group or subculture develops it own argot to some degree. And when that group or subculture starts becoming generally known, some of its special language leaks into general usage. In other words, the culture at large takes what it likes and finds useful, even from a subculture of which it disapproves.

It’s yet another quirky aspect of language that I find fascinating.

I often think about the power that language has over us. The words in our lexicon shape our thoughts and beliefs, which shape our actions, which shape our world. The fewer words your mind can come up with, the shallower the thoughts it can entertain. But don’t get your hackles up because you think I called Uncle Earl stupid. So what if he’s an idiot. I would never suggest we take away his right to vote because he knows only three phrases: “gimme a beer,” “I’ll have the chili,” and “fuckin’ liberal media.”

That’s not even close to what I wanted to talk about today. I’m interested in something very primal in what shapes our beliefs, the truths we hold be self-evident. And what I think is that people will readily accept as true anything that can be spoken with a catchy rhythm and/or rhyme. In other words, simple poetry.

Let’s look at a few “old sayings,” for example.

“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” Most people don’t even know what this means until they’re at least 30. It doesn’t rhyme, but it does have a precisely repeated rhythm pattern, emphasis on “hand” and “bush.” It ends on an emphatic syllable. It sounds clear and magically true. But is it? Is it better to have one thing than merely the potential of having two? It says, “be happy with what you have. Don’t dream.” But we don’t question its wisdom because it sounds good.

“A stitch in time saves nine.” A pleasant rhyme, a little pause after “time,” and two emphatic syllables at the end. Who wouldn’t believe what this says, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” (no rhyme but solid rhythm and great opposition of “ounce” and “pound” that appeals to the supposed virtue of frugality.

“Hell no, we won’t go.” If it’s the sixties, and you’re in an anti Vietnam war march, you need a catchy slogan to chant as you march. After all, wars have them, why not anti-wars, right? It’s a cadence. Its rhyme and five all-emphasized syllables are powerful and good for shouting. “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” Another rhyming Vietnam era marching chant. You can almost dance to it.

“A penny saved is a penny earned.” It doesn’t rhyme, but it does have repeated meter and repeats “penny,” as well as having the strong syllables at the end of each half of the equation. Aha, and it is an equation isn’t it? It has perfect balance. Does the effort of saving a penny really equate to having earned it? I don’t know. What if you found the penny, put in a drawer and just forgot to spend it? Did you earn it?

Political campaigners know that catchy slogans are at least as much about sound than they are about sense — maybe more. A few famous ones are:

A Chicken in Every Pot. A car in every garage. — 1928 Republican presidential campaign slogan of Herbert Hoover.
All the way with LBJ —1964 U.S. presidential campaign slogan of Lyndon Johnson.
Drill, baby, Drill! – 2008 US presidential campaign slogan of John McCain, used by his Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. This phrase was often chanted as a call for America to consume domestic oil reserves. The phrase was originally coined by Michael Steele at the 2008 Republican National Convention.
I like Ike – 1952 U.S presidential campaign slogan of Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Yes We Can – Barack Obama, 2008.
Read my lips: no new taxes – George H. W. Bush during the 1988 U.S. presidential election.

George Orwell published his novel 1984 in 1948. The Party, the ruling entity in the world the novel creates, knows that language controls thought, so when they want to make an idea disappear, they simply make the words disappear. And they have a marvelous slogan to justify a never-ending, fabricated war with a different geopolitical entity: “War is Peace.” Aha! A Slogan with a paradox. What could be better? I won’t go into Orwell’s point here at length. He’s making more than one. The main idea, though, is that The Party knows it’s possible to hold two contradictory beliefs at the same time – and believe both. People are that easily manipulated. Put that in a slogan with three one-syllable words, and you’ve got mind control magic.

Advertising is, of course, no stranger to the power of language. One of my favorite little numbers was in an ad campaign by the U.S. Army. “Be All You Can Be.” Nice! It’s got the same existential word front and back, all one-syllable words, “you” right in the middle (ego), and the comprehensiveness of “all.” Who wouldn’t want to be all they can be? It has a nice appeal to low self-esteem, too. I haven’t heard of any medical schools using this slogan.

I’ve spent a lot of time on the what of this issue, but none on the why.  Why do rhyme, cadence, repetition, and other elements of language that one might think were just the clothes ideas are dressed in have such an impact? Is it because the nursery rhymes most small children hear cause certain neural pathways to be created in the brain or cause the release of endorphins, the residual memory of which we somehow retain as adults? Hell, I don’t have a clue. I never got to be all I can be and with luck never will. Sorry, I didn’t mean to cheat you out of an answer. But I promise to spend more time researching this someday.

I just want to say that whenever you hear a phrase that you think makes great sense, ask yourself if it’s because of what it really says or because it “sounds” good.

While not about how sound affects beliefs, read Orwell’s 1984 anyway. If you have already read it, read it again.

And also read about the the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, Which is the basic premise behind what Orwell wrote.

What do you think?

Lawyers, as we all know, are trained as babies to be trusting, transparent, and tender. I added that last one only because I needed a “t” word. OK, so they’re not trained to be any of that; they are trained instead to be wary, careful, even cynical. Trust 401 is not a recommended course for lawyers. Trusting means letting your guard down, opening yourself up to an unexpected sucker punch. This attitude probably serves well in the courtroom or in difficult negotiations. These are situations where everyone in the room has their own clients’ interests at heart, and they’re going to protect those interests at all costs. Good. That’s why these guys get the big bucks.

But back in the office, there’s another client they need to take care of. Lawyers and law firms all have a client whom they rarely treat like one, and that’s themselves. If they’re going to grow their business, they need to pay attention to, nurture, and care for their practice – and their firm’s. They hire marketers and business development pros to help them do this, but the defensive posture taken to protect clients is sometimes taken toward the very people they have hired to do the important business of marketing and business development. The phrase “cutting off your nose to spite your face” comes to mind.

I once worked at a firm that, because of this defensive approach, simply would not let its marketers do their job. Whenever the executive director would remind me to lock my door or turn documents face-down on my desk, I would politely remind him that my office held no secrets. The job of marketing is to communicate to the world, not to make sure nothing leaks out. I’d tell him that all the secrets were in his office, not mine.

While many firms make it mandatory that their marketing and business development folks become intimately familiar with who their clients are, their revenue from each, and plans to grow that revenue using the many tools and programs that the marketing and biz dev pros can recommend and help implement, this firm put a wall around that information. They’re afraid that it will get into the wrong hands. Not only do they withhold the critical information that marketing needs to do its job, they often keep it from the attorneys themselves.

True, marketers – and lawyers, too – come and go. They leave firms and go to other firms, just as people do in any business. But if you don’t trust them when you have them, you tie their hands. How can a marketer recommend a top client appreciation program, for example, if he or she doesn’t know who the top clients are, and all the other information marketing depends on? How can he or she help you deflect potential negative PR if you keep secret the fact that there’s a potential issue? If you assume everyone is somehow going to find a way to use your information to do you harm someday, you also prevent them from doing you good today.

Clearly, I’m talking above about a fairly extreme case. How unusual it is I really don’t know. But when law firm marketers find themselves in such a situation, they have two choices: they can simply give up (hard to swallow) or try to engender change. I’m not talking about the age-old issue of convincing managing partners and executive committees that they’re not wasting their money on marketing. There are metrics that can be quite convincing. I’m not even talking about getting the proverbial “seat at the table.” It’s much more basic. I’m talking about simple trust – trusting us to view the family jewels and then return them safely to the family jewel box, giving us access to the information we need to help them.

In “Mending Wall,” Robert Frost wrote: “Before I built a wall, I’d ask to know what I was walling in or walling out.” If walling in information results in walling out clients, maybe a little more trust – even if it’s a bit counter-intuitive for some lawyers – might go a long way.

To use a phrase I find extremely curious, “I’m just sayin’.”

All thoughts and dialogue on this are most welcome! What do you think? Any similar experiences?