| thepowerofpain.com :: the pain papers :: newsletter #14 |
THE PAIN PAPERS:
|
|
——————————————————————————————————- Learn to Use Pain as a Catalyst for Innovation ——————————————————————————————————- The Pain Papers ——————————————————————————————————- SHARE THE WEALTH. FORWARD THIS NEWSLETTER. Any other unauthorized publication, excerpting, or duplication of the contents without the permission of Christopher K. O'Leary is a violation of copyright law. For past issues of The Pain Papers, see... To subscribe to The Pain Papers, please send a message
to... To unsubscribe from The Pain Papers, please send a
message to... ——————————————————————————————————-
——————————————————————————————————- THE POWER OF LANGUAGE I was working on the book the other day, and in particular on the profile of Howard Head that is going to go in the book. One of the things that I noticed was how much derision Head had to put up with. His ski was labeled "the cheater" and his racket was called a butterfly swatter. I find this interesting because it points out one reason why pain persists. People who are part of an industry or sport find that pain has its advantages. It gives them both a feeling of exclusivity and status. As a result, they have a vested interest in keeping things difficult. You can see the same thing happening in the golf industry. Callaway industries is facing huge pressure from organizations that are resisting its efforts to make the sport easier and thus more accessible. The lesson is that people who want to alleviate pain must understand that this resistance will be present and must develop mechanisms to both put up with it and use it to their advantage. ——————————————————————————————————- CONGLOMERATES AND MEMES GE strikes me as a company that illustrates the problems that conglomerates have when it comes to meme crafting. GE has one of the more forgettable taglines - "We bring good things to life". The problem is that the portfolio of products that operates under the GE brand is so broad that the tagline simply can't say anything. The GE brand as a whole is clearly not an expert in anything (while GE may be). Some would say that this isn't an issue. GE is clearly doing OK. However, you will note that GE has had to retreat into market segments that are dominated by conglomerates. It generally loses when it goes head-to-head with a more focused brand. If GE wants to be able to operate in niche markets, then it will have to adopt a P&G type strategy of developing focused brands. These brands can then support their own taglines. These taglines will then be able to serve as a memory aid and act as an asset to the brand. Quick quiz. What is P&G's tagline? I don't know and it doesn't matter because that is not what P&G is selling. ——————————————————————————————————- I FEEL YOUR PAIN I have been reading about McDonalds's problems lately, and I think their tagline reflects their internal problems. The current McDonalds slogan is "We love to see you smile". While this is nice, it really means nothing. I don't care that you love to see me smile. What's more, if you really loved to see me smile, you would do something about your service quality problems. Give me a chance to vent my frustration. This tagline stands in sharp contrast to the one that McDonalds used to ride to the top - "You deserve a break today". I love this slogan because it delivers a real promise. It talks about value. As a parent, I can relate to needing a break and could see that McDonalds serves that function. The problem is that the McDonalds of today appears to have lost their way. All they can think of is to stress their low prices. However, any B2C dot-com will tell you that there is more to life than price. Price is the last thing that you sell on. If you want to succeed, you need to do what McDonalds did in the 80s and sell higher-level features like the idea of a break. ——————————————————————————————————- PAIN AND SELLING Given that I was just laid off by a company whose sales were collapsing (they wanted sales but didn't do what it took to get them), I have been thinking a lot about selling. Robert Cialdini is one of my favorite writers on the subject, and I wanted to give you a couple of links to his work. The first is an interview that I think is interesting because he talks about the difference between selling negatives and selling positives. https://www.landofsilence.com/interview.html "CIALDINI: There was a study done, for example, in Santa Cruz, California. Researchers went door to door in certain neighborhoods with an official from the local power company who did an energy audit on each of the homes, telling homeowners where they should use weather stripping and insulate, and so on. And at the end of this audit, the official gave them a figure, let's say it was $.75 and said if you will insulate your home fully, you will save $.75 a day every day. That was for half of them, the other half were told, if you fail to insulate your home fully, you will lose $.75 a day every day. Significantly more people insulated their homes under the loss instruction then under the gain instruction, even though it was the same thing. CWII: So, what our listeners really have to understand is that it is not just the content of what we are presenting to our customers in the sales and marketing environment, it is the context in which we put the same information. CIALDINI: That's right. In the context of loss, people are more motivated than in the context of gain. So, how many training programs have you been at where everyone is told "sell benefits"? That's true, but you need to do more than simply tell people what they stand to gain. You need to tell them what benefits they stand to lose if they don't choose in your direction. People are more motivated by that idea. There was just a recent study that I saw that came out, if you ask college students to think about the possibility of losing as opposed to gaining in their grade point average, they're much more upset by the idea of losing ground than they are enthused about the idea of gaining ground. Loss is more powerful and we should take it into account. People want to know what they stand to lose." There is also a great summation of Cialdini's work in the October 2001 Issue of the Harvard Business Review. The article is called "Harnessing the Science of Persuasion". You should read it if you aren't familiar with his work. My work has been heavily impacted by his. ——————————————————————————————————- KISS I was watching TV the other morning and came across and interview that Matt Lauer of the Today show was conducting with Gene Simmons of KISS (the American band from the 70s that wore all of the makeup and the platform shoes). I found the interview interesting because Simmons made the point that KISS came out of his frustration with the bands of the day. Gene Simmons was a huge fan of the Beatles. What he liked about the Beatles was that every member of the band was a star. That stood in sharp contrast to many of the bands of the late 60s and early 70s in which the lead singer was the one who got all of the press. Simmons also found the bands of the day to be lacking in showmanship. While they played good music, they paid little attention to theatrics and entertaining people with anything other than their music. They were generally just a bunch of hippies jamming on stage. Simmons was a fan of science fiction and fantasy and thought that he could create something really unique by introducing those elements into the band's stage presence. Give people a show, not just play music. The lesson is that frustration and dissatisfaction can be used to address a broad range of marketing problems - including the creation of a band. ——————————————————————————————————- WHOLE FOODS MARKETS A Whole Foods Market just opened in St. Louis and I stopped in the other day. All I can say is that Whole Foods gets it. Now, I don't know whether they will survive (but I bet they will) because I am not their typical customer, but they are sure giving it their all. While most retail concepts are "new" on the outside and the same on the inside (for example, Ultimate Electronics), Whole Foods is a great example of absolute consistency in thinking and of acting differently. A Whole Foods is a medium-sized grocery store. Their promise is that they offer only products made from natural ingredients. Let me tell you, they deliver in spades. This is the most consistent store that I have ever seen. It is full of brands that I have never seen before in all of the major categories - pizzas, frozen foods, baby food. The only brands that I recognized were a few drinks. Everything else was a niche brand. I felt like I was in a European grocery store. I didn't recognize any of the brands. The consistency just blew me away. I walked through the entire store with a smile on my face because I was so impressed. Virtually EVERY brand was an alternative brand. In a world full of retailers who offer only degrees of sameness, Whole Foods really stands out. ——————————————————————————————————- LEADING Dave Wagner (dave@websiteparamedics.com) writes... "Actually, there is a legitimate use of this word to describe a company. The circumstance is when the company is the leading firm in the mind of the consumer and the marketer's view is that other adjectives seem arrogant or redundant. I realize that you are just opining and not reporting, but I thought I would throw that idea in your direction..." I can see your point. The problem is that I think that "Leading" runs a greater risk of sounding arrogant than do the alternatives. The advantage of phrases like "first" and "most widely-used" is that they are the truth. Again, the problem with "leading" is that it is what you say about yourself while "first" and "most widely-used" are what the market says about you. Also, I found a new candidate for the list. I was listening to the radio and an announcer came on and said that "_____ is the #1 prescribed _____ in the world." ——————————————————————————————————- CRAIG WEATHERUP GETS IT Midi Cox (midic@mac.com) pointed me to this link... https://www.fastcompany.com/online/53/teaching.html There are some really great ideas about listening in here. "When Pepsi's Weatherup visits general managers at one of the company's 300 sites, he pays particular attention to the language he hears. In a manager's analysis of the local market, for example, Weatherup listens for references to the company's overall mission statement or to a new strategy that he has laid out. He's not interested in mimicry. He wants a sense that the manager is thinking about her piece of the business in the right framework. "If I hear the language of the company coming back to me, I know that I'm reaching people," Weatherup says. He was forced to become a good listener while working in Japan, his first assignment with Pepsi. Because English was a second language to his colleagues, he became sensitive to the emotion behind people's words. He still listens for it today. "I'm interested in people's feelings, not just the latest volume and pricing numbers. I want to know what frustrates them and what they feel good about."... Craig E. Weatherup has about 40,000 employees, which means that he has about 40,000 students. As chairman and CEO of the Pepsi Bottling Group, he believes in trying to teach every chance he gets. "I don't know if it's my number-one job, but it's pretty close," says Weatherup. "I could talk about this for days." In his job, teaching is vital, he says, because 25,000 of his employees work unsupervised while delivering or selling Pepsi products. If they don't understand what's important to PBG's executive team, the strategy won't drive the front line. As well as attending meetings with the company's 25-member operating council, Weatherup squeezes in informal one-on-one sessions with employees in the field, something he learned from former PepsiCo president Andy Pearson after joining the company in 1974. "You can't teach unless people believe you care about them," Weatherup says." ——————————————————————————————————- KAY JEWELERS Tom Hubbard (hubbard.1@osu.edu) writes... "Hi Chris, I've just quickly scanned your latest edition and have a comment. I sort of agree and disagree with you on Kay Jewelers. The 'Every kiss' quote doesn't mean anything logically but it's a strong message to those who think all their concerns, interests and passions can be accomplished through something purchases. It may not literally say something about the company directly but it says the company has the answer to the recipient's need. I may have created a meme with the Ohio State School of Journalism faculty. I was the only photojournalism person. All the others were typical writers, believing that writing communicated, photography amused. I came up with, 'Important information is communicated by photography.' I dropped it into all relevant discussions. After a while, I began to hear it coming back in others' own words. I guess I was following classic propaganda procedure. (I think 'propaganda' carries too much of a negative connotation. The goals may be negative many times, but the procedure is universal. It's in every sermon and persuasive message.)" It does make that message. That is the point of the ad. However, I think the tagline is a missed opportunity. Why not use the tagline to reinforce that "We've got what you need" or "You'll be a hero" message? Your example is a great one. It's amazing how people do pick up on stuff. ——————————————————————————————————- BREAKPOINT AND BEYOND Tom Hubbard (hubbard.1@osu.edu) also writes... "Have you read Break-point and Beyond by George Land and Beth Jarman? (ISBN 0-88730-547-4) Published 1992. Here's a passage from page 221. "Nature provided each of us with a wonderful and tenacious internal guidance system for individual transformation. The mechanism is extraordinarily simple. When we are growing and connecting, we feel pleasure and joy. When we are not growing or are disconnecting, we feel pain. These feelings are unerringly accurate signals to guide us. ... However, no pain is greater than living a life without meaning or one filled with regrets. Pain always manifests itself when we refuse to grow. We need to learn to interpret our pain, be it emotional, physical or spiritual, as a message from our intuitive self to change. Pain arises when something inside us is being denied. Moving beyond the pain, breaking old patterns, letting go of outworn beliefs, and following your heart is how to find true joy." This is a great quote that speaks for itself. ——————————————————————————————————- SEGWAY REDUX Ron Houtman (uxu@yahoo.com) writes... "Regarding the Segway - Do you think Dean Kamen's group thought about the implications in naming their device? The Segway Human Transport equals SHT as an acronym... even worse, this thing was nicknamed IT. What does that sound like? Hopefully they don't brand it the SHT-2000 or something silly like that.</tongue in cheek off>" My first impression is that the name reminds me of the 2000-SUX car that is featured in Robocop. ;-) This also raises the issue of naming. While the term "Segway Human Transport" sounds fairly techno (and really just geeky), it isn't very descriptive. I believe that the name of a product should reflect its value. It should reflect the pain that the product alleviates or the problem that it solves. My sense is that the name reflects the company's aspirations for the product. They evidently believe, and have convinced others to say, that this product will change the world. As Jay Leno said last night "Some people are saying that this thing will replace walking." As I said last week, I don't think that will happen for a number of reasons. The problem is that those broad aspirations likely will prevent them from achieving even a small portion of the success that is possible. I have found that naming usually reflects thinking. In this case, their naming reflects their lack of focus and lack of a problem orientation - which is typical of engineers. If they want the product to succeed, then they need to change their thinking and change their naming. They need to focus their thinking and their naming. ——————————————————————————————————- Please send all comments or feedback to chris@thepowerofpain.com SHARE THE WEALTH. FORWARD THIS NEWSLETTER. Any other unauthorized publication, excerpting, or duplication of the contents without the permission of Christopher K. O'Leary is a violation of copyright law. To subscribe to The Pain Papers, please send a message
to... To unsubscribe from The Pain Papers, please send a
message to... Any e-mail sent regarding The Pain Papers may be published and commented upon unless the email explicitly states that it's not for publication. For past issues of The Pain Papers, see... For more information about this distribution list, go
to... This document is produced by... ——————————————————————————————————- |
| All contents © Copyright 1998-2001, Chris O'Leary. The Power of Pain, What a Pain in the Ass, and whatapita are Service Marks of Chris O'Leary. All rights reserved. This material is for personal use only. Republication and redissemination, including posting to news groups, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Chris O'Leary. |