Marketing is what I choose to call ‘everlasting’. In the good times it’s required to keep you on top; in the worst times it’s required to keep you from falling out of the bottom. While business coaches deliver their eulogies as to what to do and economists tell us what’s going wrong and how bad it’s likely to be, our profession is left to fight the good fight and win back the lost yards. People perceive that, like warriors of the past, we will emerge bloodied and battered with a ‘Heineken’ in one hand and Hors D’Oeuvres in the other.
Explore our historical blog articles for nuggets of wisdom (and random musings) from our crew.
I could be described as the teams’s cultural antiquity, but before my younger colleagues begin carbon dating me I thought I might voice an opinion or two about the wonders of the internet as a marketing geriatric.
These days, even the Home of the Bewildered has a computer and an internet connection so I think it’s fair that I offer my perspective despite my colleagues raised voices and vigorous objections. I can’t talk techno babble, I’m illiterate in that department so all I have to offer is plain old smart speak.
There’s one question on every business man’s lips. It’s a question which is always at the forefront of discussion, especially in a so-called ‘recession’ – there I’ve uttered that filthy word. It’s a question which, according to economic rationalists, doesn’t require an answer. As one said to me recently “The answer’s obvious”.
The question of course is, should we advertise and market in today’s perfect, economic storm? I have my own rules in reference to this so let me introduce you to some ‘Robinson’ logic, acquired over plenty of recessions and forty years of marketing.
RULE 1. Never market, promote or brand yourself when nothing is happening!
RULE 2. ‘Nothing’ is never happening!
From any perspective it’s a triumph. The Bunnings’ success story rolls on and why not? It’s brilliant! They’ve found the formula and it’s simple in strategic terms but very complex in its implementation.
Having recently been diagnosed with a cataract I can speak with some authority on visual impairment. “Through a glass darkly” is the perfect description of my visual capabilities at present, at least until the operation. It started me thinking about perceptual vision and how diagnostics work in a marketing sense.
The headline of this blog is a direct ‘pinch’ from the good old, New Testament book of Corinthians and its interpreted to mean, ‘humans have an imperfect perception of reality’. That’s also perfect for my story because so much of what marketing can do, hangs on seeing the challenge with a very clear focus. Get it wrong and the imperfect perception becomes an imperfect reality.
My resolution for 2009 and onward is at best obvious. I’m fed up; cheesed off and totally disillusioned with politics and politicians in particular. I know only one I would trust with my old bicycle.
We’ve all been long aware that a politician’s promise is at best ‘elastic’, but I’m sure none of us ‘humans’ were prepared for the new wave of manipulated language which these so called ‘Honourable Members’ have now shaped. Apparently there is now a difference between, ‘a PROMISE’ and a ‘CORE PROMISE’.
It was of course our invention. We the people created him. Stout, unshaven, long haired and dressed in a ‘not so stylish’ red suit with a buckle that would make a bikie gang happy. He lands on your roof, enters your home by subterfuge, eats your bickies, drinks your milk and shoots through leaving only gifts for the whole family. Wonderful, harmless, benevolent, wishful and special.