Oh you thought were were witnessing a general election campaign?
No, no. I made the same mistake to begin with. What we’re seeing now is something entirely different.
A general perception campaign.
Every since the leaders’ debates kicked off two weeks ago, only one thing has mattered.
Appearances.
How they look. How they sound. Whether they’re convincing. Who comes across as honest. Do they look shifty? Who’s making eye contact? (Nick Clegg cracked that one way before the others, and became Mr Stary Man.)
“I thought Gordon Brown came across as human,” I heard one woman say on Radio 4.
As opposed to what? An animal? A machine? A Cyberman?
Well yes, come to think of it, he does sometimes come across as the last one.
After the Lib Dem bounce following the first debate, Brown quickly realised that presentation wasn’t his strong suit. And he said so in the second debate:
“This may have the feel of a TV popularity contest. But in truth, this election is a fight for Britain’s future. Your future and your jobs. If it’s all about style and PR, count me out. But if you want someone to make decisions…”
(I’ll spare you the rest, as he then reverted to Cyberman mode.)
You see what he’s doing, don’t you?
Facing reality, turning his weakness into a strength, taking the moral high ground and cutting his rivals off at the pass.
That said, it’s only so effective.
He’s right when he says that presentation isn’t his strong suit.
But then neither are his suits, which look baggy and shapeless. Worse, he looks older because he is older, but also because he’s taken the decision not to hide his grey hair – unlike Nick Clegg, whose hair seems to change colour day by day.
So sharp suit or baggy suit? Grey hair or raven’s wing? Son of the manse or public schoolboy?
It’s all so difficult, isn’t it? But maybe help is at hand.
Manifest destiny
A key element of the parties’ communication strategy is their election manifesto.
Have you read them? I have.
Well, to be completely honest, I’ve skimmed them. But then, that’s all we seem to do with anything these days. Even schoolchildren don’t read classics all the way through now. Why bother, when you can download a bullet-pointed synopsis online?
As communication has speeded up, so our attention span has become shorter. Not for us the turgid prose of those dense documents that littered the political landscape 20 years ago.
Remember Labour’s 1983 manifesto? I thought not. It was famously called ‘the longest suicide note in history’ by Gerald Kaufman.
So how do the manifestos shape up in the digital age when our attention span rarely exceeds 140 characters?
Not too badly, all things considered.
The Tories have seven versions of the manifesto, aimed at different audiences and attention spans – from the 250K ‘easy read’ to the high-res 77MB version (good). But the manifesto page is swimming in a sea of tiny text (bad).
Labour have just one version, but it’s 77 pages long (bad) and not summarised (bad x2). They also have little cartoon video clips which could amuse or irritate and look a little… laboured (bad). But they have a ‘Share the manifesto’ button so you can upload to Twitter and Facebook (good).
The Lib Dems have a roll-your-own approach, so you can pick the topics (family, job, life, money etc.) that most matter to you. You can do the same with video clips, and they even let you embed the manifesto video player in your site (er, no thanks). Add BlackBerry updates and an Obama-esque iPhone app, and you’ve got a manifesto that wins hands down – on presentation, that is. Whether it translates into reality is another question entirely.
The business of politics
So what does all this have to do with real life? With positioning your products, services and company?
Everything.
Here are just some of the lessons we can learn from the General Perception campaign 2010:
Appearances count, which means that often, perception is reality.
You have to be where the people are – and that means Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, blogs and anywhere else they hang out.
The unexpected happens, so you need to remain flexible. A Clegg Bounce can come from anywhere, so be prepared.
Language is powerful. The words you choose matter – so choose them carefully.
Tailor your message to your audience, because one size never fits all.
So who gets my vote?
Well I think I’ll just float for a little while longer, and check out the ties, the suits and the haircuts.
I’ll look into their eyes – because they’re bound to look into mine, now that it’s the done thing – and I’ll see who looks dodgy. Or not.
Unintended consequences and unexpected opportunities.
Many years ago, I rented a room in a house owned by an Italian woman.
Well, not really an Italian woman – at least, not on the outside. She had a perfect, cut-glass accent, and lived in one of the posher parts of London.
But on the inside, she was Italian. She’d spent her formative years with her English parents in Rome, and had later moved to Milan. And then to England.
What amazed me about her was that nothing ever got in her way. And I’m not just talking about her driving, which was fast, dangerous and highly illegal. It was exhilarating and terrifying in equal measure, especially in sedate West London.
No, it was the way she got around life’s little irritations that impressed me. Whenever a problem cropped up, she found a solution. Rules and regulations didn’t faze her: she simply found a way to circumvent them.
One day, after a particularly cunning solution, she smiled broadly at me, and came out with a delightful Italian expression: Fatta la legge, trovato l’inganno!
Which means that as soon as a law is made, the workaround is found.
More regulation doesn’t mean more compliance, or a more orderly society. The unintended consequence of laws is that people quickly find ways to bypass them. Make more laws, and people simply find more ways.
And the Italians are good at finding ways: it’s estimated that the black market would add another 30% to their GDP. In the UK, by comparison, it’s a mere 5-10%.
Penny dreadful
Unintended consequences are one of life’s unavoidable problems (or opportunities – you decide).
Whenever you take a decision – to change your pricing, launch a marketing campaign, target a sector of the market, expand your product range – there are unintended consequences.
When the Net Book Agreement, which had set fixed prices for books in the UK for almost 100 years, was scrapped in mid-90s, it was hailed as a good thing. Henceforth, the market would prevail as these old, outdated restrictive practices were swept away.
The result?
Big chains got bigger. Small bookshops couldn’t compete. Supermarkets started selling books, and set their selling price below the cost price of many bookshops. In some cases, supermarkets simply used books as loss leaders to draw people into the store to buy food.
Publishing houses took fewer chances, as blockbusters ruled the day. Large book chains demanded funds for marketing, and supermarkets vetoed book covers which they claimed wouldn’t work for their customers.
A good thing indeed.
The French – as they mostly do – took a different approach. Culture was an exception, they said. Books weren’t a commodity, to be sold like so many bottles of mineral water or tins of cassoulet.
And so in France, to this day, the maximum a book can be discounted is 5%, whether you’re a mega-supermarket, an online retailer or a tiny independent bookseller.
The result? More books, more bookshops, more choice.
Vive la différence.
Text maniac
You can’t stand still. And you can’t predict the future – so don’t try to. Unintended consequences are everywhere, unpredictable and mostly unstoppable.
And sometimes, the consequences cause a chain reaction:
Text messages, thought to be a nice-to-have-but-essentially-useless add-on to the mobile phone, took off in a way nobody could have foreseen. Today, they’re worth billions of pounds a year to mobile operators.
Twitter, building on SMS success, has come from nowhere to be everywhere. It makes no sense and defies analysis. But it is what it is, and it’s here to stay.
Burglaries have suddenly became easier, thanks to people’s constant tweeting about their movements. I’m just popping out to the gym, they tell the world. Leaving the house empty, of course – a problem that the daring website Please Rob Me highlighted to startling effect. (It’s since suspended its operations, having made its point.)
Stuff happens. It’s how you deal with it that makes the difference.
Think ahead, identify the most likely problems, and work out your strategy. Don’t let yourself get stuck in Indecision Alley – it’s dead end.
And when the unexpected happens – and it will – go with the flow and react fast. See if there’s an opportunity lurking in the midst of it all, seize it with both hands, and run with it.
Much as a software company I know did. They launched what they thought was a niche solution, aimed at a gap in the market. But they weren’t sure, as the saying goes, whether there was a market in the gap.
There was.
Such a big market, in fact, that they completely re-engineered their company around that one solution, which has since become a runaway success.
So you see? Good stuff happens too.
Ciao bella
When my landlady’s parents went to live in Italy, they thought it would give their daughter a second language, an appreciation of art, culture and fine wine, as well as a broader world outlook.
It did. But it also gave her a lifelong disrespect for rules, a fiery temper and a quirky method of getting out of a tight parking spot.
One morning, I stood at my bedroom window, gaping in disbelief as she drove her car a little forwards, then a little backwards, in the impossibly small space. She nudged the car in front, and the car behind, and in front, and behind.
Well I say nudged, but I did hear a pretty loud bump each time she made contact. Bump, bump, bump, bump.
And then, with just enough space to swing out, she was off. Hurtling down a suburban London road with reckless abandon, singing along to the sound of Claudio Baglioni on her car stereo.
Unintended. But pretty damned impressive.
Find out more:
Open House. The controversial website Please Rob Me highlights over-sharing information online. Next time, think before you tweet.
Last summer, I heard a radio interview with somebody from News International, who said they were considering charging for access to the online versions of The Times and The Sunday Times.
They were confident that people would pay.
Not me, I thought to myself. Not in a million years.
Why? Because I’ve been reading The Times online for free for over 10 years. And it’s good – but not that good.
And if I’m honest, I’m a bit of an online tart, so I also spend quality time with the Daily Telegraph and The Guardian (or if I’m in a more exotic mood, Le Figaro or Le Monde).
And then last week, the story was confirmed. From June, it’ll cost £1 a day or £2 a week to read the papers online.
I wondered what the reaction would be. I’m often out of step with the popular mood on these things. Perhaps other people – real, sensible, grown-up people – would think it was a good idea, and made sound economic sense.
After all, The Times gets 20m unique visitors a month. If even 5% stay with them, that’s a million people they can ‘monetise’.
Or perhaps not.
When I last looked, the story on the Times site had 472 comments, most of them negative. Some very negative.
And when I clicked on the ‘most recommended’ heading, I saw that a whopping 3,500 people had recommended the top comment. Which tells you how consistent the response was – for every one person posting, eight were simply agreeing with the most recommended (self-perpetuating, I realise) comment.
If I were James Harding, the editor, I’d be worried. Very worried.
Free and easy
Giving something away for free is a great way to attract people. But once they turn up, what do you do then?
A sprat to catch a mackerel is fine: you give a free e-book, or a free hour’s consulting, or a free website critique, because you hope to pick up more, bigger and paid work.
But if you’re giving away everything, as The Times was, then you’ve got a big problem.
It’s all a case of expectations.
Do you charge for your time? I do. So when somebody says “Let’s get together. I’m in Brighton – where are you?” I realise three things.
First, they’re a ‘meeting person’. Second, they don’t value my time – or at least, they’re not prepared to pay for it. And third, they haven’t checked on my website to see where I live and work (I’m often tempted to say “The Isle of Lewis. Why? Where are you?” to see what their reaction is.)
And almost every time, when people realise there’s a price tag attached, the meeting effortlessly morphs into a teleconference or a videoconference. Which is free, of course.
The thing is, people value what you value.
Just the other evening, I had a second helping of pasta at a friend’s house (tagliatelle carbonara, since you asked). And as I twiddled my fork, I suddenly thought how odd it would be to ask for seconds in a restaurant.
“Was everything OK?” the spotty waiter with the off-white shirt would ask.
“Yes, absolutely delicious,” I’d reply. “In fact, it was so good, I’ll have a second helping.”
“Certainly, sir – that’ll be another £11.50. I’ll be right back.”
Free. £11.50. It’s all a matter of context.
The naked truth
Would you walk down the street in skimpy underwear? Of course you wouldn’t (if you would, you should consider seeking help).
But what if that underwear was actually a bathing costume and the street was actually the pathway down to a shimmering blue pool?
But that’s different, I hear you say.
Is it really? Or is it simply a case of perception? You’re still as naked, but it’s just a matter of how it feels.
Free is the same. It’s a perception. You have to create the value first, before you can give it away.
And if you do go down the free route, remember a few basics:
It’s a powerful weapon, but it should be used sparingly. Once, I worked for a company that constantly bundled ‘free’ software with much more expensive software. So often, in fact, that it came to be the norm. And when the freebies disappeared, guess what happened? That’s right – the paid-for software sales fell of a cliff. Now in reality, the free software was a gimmick, and probably sat on people’s shelves or on their hard drive – either way, it was unused. But it had the magic word ‘free’ attached, and that creates value. Taking it away has consequences.
It works one way only. You can make something free that you’ve charged for, but it rarely works the other way around (as James Harding may well discover in June). Lotus, the software company, makers of the iconic Lotus 1-2-3, gave away their word processor, Ami Pro, to boost sales way back in the 90s. Then, they decided to start charging for it. Charging? For free software? You must be joking, thought customers. And nobody bought it.
It should really be free. Not FREE* or Free (++) or even FREE^^^. If you’re going to hem in your offer with endless terms and conditions (what’s the difference, by the way?) then you might as well think of another offer.
So free is easy, but not that easy. You should think long and hard before you start giving things away, and make sure you have an exit strategy.
Much as I have with The Times.
There’s still another two months to go before everything disappears inside a walled garden, but I’m already weaning myself off their columnists, correspondents and diarists.
“The really depressing bit for me,” said my friend, “was to hear the word authenticity used as a marketing term. Something is either authentic or it isn’t.”
He wasn’t talking about mobile phones or cars, life coaches or insurance salesmen. No, it was worse – much worse.
Politicians.
We’d both heard the same edition of Analysis on BBC Radio 4, which talked about pitching for the female vote in the upcoming general election. Its title, Babies and Biscuits, was inspired by David Cameron’s appearance on Mumsnet, a million-strong online network of mothers.
Mothers with votes.
Questions ranged from childcare vouchers to ID cards, with brief detours via nappies (aka diapers) and his favourite biscuit (he had an answer he prepared earlier – unlike Gordon Brown in the Biscuitgate scandal).
Perception is reality
Authenticity is on everybody’s lips these days. Everybody wants to be real, honest, and open – or at least, to appear so.
So we’re all doing the open-kimono thing, trying to show the real us, trying to connect with prospects.
My gym certainly is. LA Fitness have mugshots of real staff members plastered all over the gym, the web and in magazine advertising. Real people, warts and all.
Estate agent Carter Jonas has taken the same approach, relaunching its brand so the focus is not property, but…you got it, people.
So Sinéad likes Latin American dancing and Marie is a champion golfer. Geoff sails dinghies and Kevin enjoys cooking (he’s welcome to it).
Does this all feel authentic to you?
No, me neither. You get the feeling they’re trying too hard to be something they’re not. And by shoehorning them into roles they – and we – feel uncomfortable with, nobody’s being done any favours.
Easy does it
The thing about being honest and open is that it’s a hard sell. Tell somebody you’re honest, and their instinct is to doubt you. Why is he telling me this?
It’s a bit like telling somebody you’re talented. Isn’t that something they should be able to work out for themselves?
Going back to basics is another option. I’ve lost count of the number of times people have said to me I want to be more like Innocent.
Innocent Drinks, that is. With the cute cartoons and the cutesy taglines. It works very well – for them.
But here’s the thing. It isn’t the result of some focus group or creative brainstorm. It’s not designed to deceive or deflect. It’s a simple idea, with a simple execution.
And I do think it’s authentic. In fact, unless I was being spun to, I know it is.
Years ago, I bumped into one of the Innocents at a networking event in London. An ex-teacher, he’d abandoned the classroom and thrown himself into smoothies instead (metaphorically speaking, you understand).
And when it came to copy, he decided to give it a go himself. He’d keep it simple, straightforward and… innocent.
And it worked.
But that bandwagon has passed, and it’s too late to jump on. So don’t. Instead, create your own, start a trend and set yourself apart.
Be authentic, but do it your way.
And remember that being is one thing – doing is another. You’ve got to deliver, otherwise you’re just a likeable incompetent.
As Seth says:
… ‘being’ is too amorphous and we are notoriously bad at judging that. Internal vision is always blurry. Doing, on the other hand, is an act that can be seen by all.
Can I quote him on that? Oh yes, I just did.
And finally
So was Cameron being authentic, or just playing the game in a cynical attempt to garner votes?
Well, June 3rd is the last date on which an election can take place. So on the morning of the 4th, we’ll see how the cookie crumbles.
Or the biscuit. (Mine’s a ginger nut, by the way.)
Find out more:
It’s a duck: Seth Godin‘s take on authenticity (and Mother Teresa).
I could have taken umbrage, but I didn’t. What she was really getting at is that her mind functions very differently to mine. Her spelling is often patchy, but she has a wonderful sense of colour and shape. She’s hopeless with foreign languages, but has a keen ear for English accents.
Her comment came after I’d mentioned that for me, days had colours. Monday is green, Tuesday is blue, Wednesday is orange, and so on.
Before you get worried, I don’t taste numbers or smell words or feel images. I just do the day/colour thing. That’s all.
I know what you’re thinking (maybe)
I thought about that episode again just recently when I watched Temple Grandin’s talk called The world needs all kinds of minds at TED 2010.
Grandin herself thinks in pictures, and says it took her a long time before she realised that others perceived the world in a very different way.
She identifies three groups, and gives examples of what professions they’re best suited to:
Visual thinkers, who make good graphic designers, photographers and creators.
Pattern thinkers, who often go on to become programmers and mathematicians.
Verbal thinkers, who want to know everything about everything, and make good journalists or actors.
Minds, audiences, messages
So how does all of this relate to your sales and marketing messages? The mailshots you send, the websites you put up, the brochures you write?
Well, it means that you need to really think about your audience.
And often, we don’t. We assume they’re visual, when actually they’re verbal. Or that they see patterns, when in fact, they see the whole picture. Or that they’re details people, like we are – but really, they’re not.
So what can you do to get around it? Well why not:
Use pictures and words. Combine strong graphics that send out a clear, positive message, backed up by enough detail to satisfy the curious.
Summarise and give detail. If you use headings and bullets, skimmers can skim. And details-focused people can read the bits in between.
Offer them a choice.Looking for technical details? Step this way, sir. Want a marketing overview? Second on the left, madam. If you structure your copy so people can branch off, you’ll keep all the minds happy.
And always remember, that what you think is obvious may not be that obvious. As sure as night follows day.
And as sure as Saturday is red (but then, you knew that, didn’t you?).
