Random Thoughts
How to find more lovers?
I have been toying with an idea: a new direction for this blog. Thus far, this blog has been random observations and lessons. But a central theme in marketing has been resonating with me, and perhaps it’d be a good idea to have more posts surrounding this central theme.
What’s this theme, you ask?
Love the Haters.
Since a brand cannot be everyone to everyone, by definition, it’s going to attract some people, and repel some people. You know that you’ve achieved this if you have people who loves your brand AND if you have people who hates your brand.
I love this quote from Sally Hogshead, author of Fascinate: “If you’re not generating a negative reaction from someone, you’re probably not fascinating anyone.”
But then… the question is… how do you grow? If haters are supposed to stay haters, how do you attract more brand lovers?
Seth Godin today proposed the following: “And the best plan for the insurgent brand? To find a smaller tribe, become the presumed winner there, and scale it up across tribes.”
The trick becomes how do you identify the next tribe…?
That’s one of the many questions I’ve been pondering. This blog will continue to explore this subject. In the meantime, what do you think?
Let’s get this discussion going. Here are some tweetable bits:
Love them brand haters. http://bit.ly/Anhni0 @jeannie_chan
Where to find brand lovers? http://bit.ly/Anhni0 @jeannie_chan
Photo credit: Nancy Everson
What does Occupy mean for marketers?
Occupy Wall Street has now been going on for a month and it’s still going strong.
What does it all mean? Hardly anyone knows. My favorite sign was “We’re here. We’re unclear. Get used to it.” (I wish I had a photo, but that particular protester was sitting on a main street which means no stopping for photographs.)
Let’s have a look at the “official” definition of this event:
Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants.
So, how is the rest of the world (or may even be part of the 99%) supposed to respond to this?
As marketers, how can we do our part to address the 99%? 99% is a lot of people.
The change this movement is looking for requires changes at the most fundamental levels of our government and economy. It’s not going to happen overnight. It’s also likely changes that most marketers have little power to actually influence, assuming you’re not part of the 1%.
Basically, OWS wants a better government. A better economy. Or simply said, a better America.
Long term changes will take time. But there are things that marketers can do in the short term.
Focus your messages on how your products make for a better America. Chase cards have their call centers not in India but in Springfield (according to their recent TVC on talking to a live person and not a machine). Auto manufacturers tells us they make their cars in the USA (even if they had traditionally been an importer).
If your product is not making for a better America, well, you’re in trouble.
Remembrance of a visionary: Part II
One could learn so much from Steve Jobs. A quote that had always been most memorable to me, and a quote that’s been often repeated was “None. It’s not the consumers’ job to know what they want.” That was Jobs’ response to the question what market research was behind the iPad.
It takes knowledge and intuition to launch a product, without a doubt. It also takes guts.
So many of us hides behind market research. Consumers told us this. Consumers told us that. But we validated this. We don’t have the data behind that.
True innovation disrupts the very nature of the fabrics of our lives. Market research can never imitate that. If you rely on market research, you can at best improve the world, but you will never change it.
Consumers could have never told you they wanted cars. They wanted faster horses.
Jeannie Chan is a Brand Manager for a Fortune 500 consumer goods company. She considers herself a marketer, a traveler, and a foodie. Jeanne lives in NYC. 
