Mother Pious Lady

Sometimes knowledge is packaged in a certain way that you would not grasp its utility unless you actually encounter it. So it is with this gem of a book: Mother Pious Lady by Santosh Desai. Packaged as a current affairs book, it is actually a gold mine for advertisers and marketers. I can see it as the basis of thousands of advertisements and marketing initiatives targeting the existing and for years to come. Actually Santosh Desai can make more money if the book is sold free, and he charges per advertisement based on this book.
Oh! You are not a marketing chap? But I am sure you would like a book that is witty and hilarious. I am sure you would also like to know the mind of the Indian middle class. Or better, you grew up as one but only recently moved up the ladder, thanks to the Indian success story. Nothing like curling up with this book and losing yourself into nostalgia. An occasional chuckle helps!
Want to read more? Check out the book review.

Google versus Bing

I am no marketing guru, but the news of Google copying Bing has a feel of the old marketing classic of Coca-Cola versus Pepsi, when Coke could not understand that brand loyalty goes beyond taste and took decisions that were disasterous.
I may be wrong, but here's an unsolicited advice to Google: Do not let users change the background image of the Google home page. The serene white background, with lego-coloured Google is your identity. Stand out.

Smiling Girls on Advertisements

Pick up any magazine. I am sure you will come across an a picture of a beautiful woman on an advertisement that has no relation whatsoever with the content of the advertisement, I have come across advertisements of a UPS showing a beautiful girl smiling away to glory. Who buys a diesel generator because of a girl? And who pays these marketing executives for coming up with such trash?

Right?
Just read this.

[I]n South Africa ... a consumer lending bank wanted to push personal loans to fifty thousand of its customers. Working together with a team of economists, the bank crafted several variations on the same basic loan offer letter. The different versions were randomly assigned to recipients and mailed off without any indication that the letters were part of an experiment.

The letters included different interest rates (ranging from 3.25% to 7.75% per month); some featured a comparison to a competitor's rate; others a giveaway ([Win one of] TEN CELL PHONES UP FOR GRABS EACH MONTH!); and still others a photo of either a man's or a woman's pleasant, smiling face.

Now you'd think that the customer would evaluate the offer based purely on interest rate and the specific terms of the loan. Marketing gimmicks such as competitor comparisons, giveaway offers, and fanciful photos shouldn't be part of the calculation. [The results showed that most of these gimmicks] didn't have much of an overall effect. The unexpected effect kicked in with the less relevant variation: the inclusion of a picture of the smiling face in the corner. ... According to the study, the magnitude of [the men receiving pictures of a smiling woman] is "about as much as dropping the interest rate 4.5 percent points."

Well, well, well!
How many of your purchasing decisions are made because of the smiling man or woman in the advertisement?

The above extract is from a wonderful book called Sway: The Irresistible Pull Of Irrational Behavior by Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman.

Need versus Demand

I am in danger of quoting the complete book. I am so taken by it.

Here's another gem from Economics In One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics by Henry Hazlitt

But need is not demand. Effective economic demand requires not merely need but corresponding purchasing power. The needs of India today [the book was updated in 1962, remember] are incomparably greater than the needs of America. But its purchasing power, and therefore the "new business" that it can simulate, are incomparably small.

Things have now obviously changed for the better. India has the need and a better purchasing power than it had in 1962. But those who are in marketing profession (and that means all employees of a company, actually - designating a separate department as the Marketing department is the biggest mistake all company do. They should call it front-end or something similar and get all other employees to start thinking like marketing chaps - but I am digressing) should take this lesson to heart: Quantitative and Qualitative Market Research will give you the 'need'; do not confuse it with 'demand'.

Are You Being Fooled By Random Purple Cows?

I don't know how well Seth Godin takes to criticism. He is a marketing guru, but I think he has fallen into the same trap in Purple Cow as many other management authors: the desire to explain random outcomes as non-random. This is a classic case of survivorship bias (learning from the winners without taking into account the losers who might have done similar stuffs but failed.)

The need to do something remarkable to capture market is a given. In order to dislodge an existing market leader an upstart has to come with something that grabs attention. But what works may not be just a remarkable product or service well marketed. Sometimes success is achieved by being at the right place at the right time. And how does one do that: by trying and trying and trying and hoping for the best.

To be fair to Godin, I am sure he understands this very well. Sample this from his book:

So is there a foolproof way to create a Purple Cow every time? ... Of course not. There is no plan. Looking into our rear-view mirror, we can always say, "Of course that worked." ... When we take off the rear-view mirror, though, creating a Purple Cow suddenly gets a lot more difficult.

Unfortunately, I find the approach too uni-dimensional.

What could have been done to make The Purple Cow more rounded? I wish there were as many case studies of failures as there are of success. An analysis of what did not work - in spite of putting out a fantastic product - may be as important, if not more so, as analysing what went right.

This is my first book by Seth Godin. I am right now following him his blog by e-mail. I will perhaps understand his point of view better. Meanwhile, I will continue analysing The Purple Cow and all other management books I read through the lens of Fooled By Randomness.

Photo courtesy: Natalija Stanivuk

***
Update as on 01-Apr-2009

Purple Cow continued to haunt me. So I re-read the complete book again (one of the advantages of buying books). I think I will retain my initial impression in this post. It still stands.
Would I recommend this book to others?
I think I will.
It has many positive points that will grab you and force you to think differently.
For a review of the book click on the icon below


Does this change of heart has anything to do with Seth Godin responding positively to my book review? Not really.
Remember I wrote the review before Godin responded! In the process I discovered that he is a good man. See my post here.

Tips For Marketing Executives

Seems to me that blogs could be of great source of input to marketing executives. Especially those who market internationally.
Here's how ...

See the world map on your right. Almost all bloggers have a variation of this map. Notice that there is a trend that emerges. Heavy viewing of English news blog in Northern America, Western Europe and it cuts across Asia almost in a straight line - with very few in China and Japan. Now, I am not saying that is a representative of all News Blogs. But all a marketer needs to do is pick up the first 100 top English news blog (unfortunately, I am not there yet) and look for the trend.

Similar, if you see a similar map in my other blog you will find a heavy concentration of viewers in Eastern USA and Western Europe. This is the locus of aerospace industry, in any case.

So, if you are into exporting food, pick up blogs on food and check out the trend. Check out the posts that has invoked the maximum interest. You now have a ready market for your stuff. Or at least you have identified the geographical areas where you need to concentrate on. Internet would be your main medium, but by poking around you could also figure out the correct medium. For example, checkout blogs on TV. See the content and the locus of hits. Determine if there is any overlap.

You could also go contrariwise. Seek out the areas that are largely blank. These are unexplored, virgin areas for your product. Be careful though. It could be that the Internet may not have penetrated into those areas as much as USA or Europe. It could also be that you are checking the wrong language blogs.