Decision making in marketing (or how to leave a meeting room really mad)

I’d suggest government agencies and other SME-related organizations to create two other indicators to categorize that type of business: decision making and corporate structure. Though I’m sure it would be very hard to quantitatively measure both, it certainly would make marketing a more respected discipline. The amount of casual, informal and own-minded decision in marketing is just unbelievable.

When you think that managers and other marketers are on the path to a more solid and less biased position towards decisions about communication, planning or anything else, it all comes down to what people think. The problem starts here. Marketing decisions are widely based on what people think on what other people say, and not what THINGS (the market, a research, a poll, results analysis etc) TELL people to do. I did study a little of psychology in marketing and it’s not that different from what see in people’s psychology. It’s just a human being thing. Well, wished I could always work with professionals, not human beings.

A number of decisions were taken right in front of me considering the past 30 seconds. You read it right. A decision, a Yes or No, an option A or B or C, was decided on an impulse of a question made on site. Is that what people learn and do at school? Answer with your heart? Decide with your intuition? Marketing is not a democracy so people would count the majority of votes in a room and then proclaim the winner.

Cancellation is not an online policy

In 2007 I read an article from a marketer complaining about the relation of existing customers and him, an old and loyal client from AT&T (sorry, I forgot to take not of the author and title). Well, he was ranting about aggressive new customer acquisition policies and even quoted an example of AT&T sending 80-dollar cheques to newly-activated individuals whereas he only received the customary monthly bill.

The article came to my mind again when I had to cancel my cable, telephone and internet services. First I called the company, and asked them to transfer my service to another person. Later it occurred I could try something online. These days a lot of companies offer the world in the internet. Even ordering pizza and DVD rentals are now online. I would imagine a big Canadian telecom corporation could offer something else, something differentiated. I was right about being wrong. It wasn’t exactly a surprise to see how Telus deal with that. My bill comes by e-mail. The opt-ins are always there in case you want to come back to paper, but not to cancel the service. There’s nothing I can do online if I want to leave them, and that sounds quite incoherent to me.

Firstly, all these services companies have the technology to provide an easy online registration and/or activation. Is it ask too much they create an easy cancellation button? Secondly, it is not difficult to imagine why they want to avoid online cancellations. That would give the customer a real time power to leave them anytime they wanted. A single aggressive promotion would be enough to drag people from the company to another player in the market. Fair enough, that only looks a way to shade a poor, bad or not cost-effective service package. If a product and its delivery are solid, the customer service works, why being so afraid to offer a cancellation button on their website?
On the other side, BCHydro, the energy provincial authority and service provider of British Columbia, offers a very simple and visible cancellation option at their website. One might argue that this case is absolutely different from Telus and it is indeed. We’re talking about two companies totally different, though the market is still the same. Some other details should also be considered, like the fact BCHydro is almost a monopoly in that market so there are no competitors to migrate – and that gives them a certain level of comfort. Another difference is the fact that household needs basic services like energy. The same doesn’t apply to cable TV or internet. However, deep down the principles I mentioned earlier are the same. I have no reasons to go a BCHydro competitor because their online services are great, their customer services is fast, objective and educated, on and offline. I also never had a problem with their services, not a single drop down.

Power of marketing II – Celine Dion

Everybody I know, from different countries, cultures, religions, beliefs and personal opinions would like to stay away from the subject “Celine Dion”. They just don’t want to talk about her, hear about her, comment about her and top of the list: listen to her sing. I don’t know a single person in the world who likes, or at least would bear to listen to Celine Dion’s music. Only mentioning the name is enough to make people frown and/or show disgust. Don’t get me wrong. She has a lot of talent and a powerful voice that would rank her among the best of her category, no doubt about it. Personally speaking, my problems with her are the repetitive and cheesy lyrics and melodies plus the constant habit of elevating the tone a little too much during performances (aka screaming).

However, how the heck
. She has sold 200 million copies worldwide up to April 2007?
. She was the highest paid artist in 2006 with more than $80 million dollars exclusively playing at a casino-hotel in Las Vegas – middle of an American nowhere desert?
. People would pay $200 dollars per concert (in average) to see her?
. A person would pay $200 dollars to see Celine Dion performing?
. Her new song (“Taking Chances”) is playing regularly in a lot of popular radios in Canada and probably worldwide?
. She appears in the hot spot of major newspapers, TV shows, magazine covers and ads all over North America?
. She performed at the prestigious and coveted American Music Awards, being introduced as the best-selling female artist of all-time?
. Air Canada paid a fortune to hire and promote Dion’s “You and I”, and had her as their marketing ambassador in one of their major campaigns a few years ago?

An absurd theory to consider is that only people from Québec, where Dion is originally from, could buy her music. The province of Québec has approximately 8 million people. Statistically speaking it means each inhabitant there would need to have bought almost 17 CDs from Celine Dion, which is impractica1ble and unlikely. Add a few selections, like the fact the bulk of her music is not in French anymore (a big impact in a Francophone place like Québec), and the average per person could triplicate. How does she sell so much then? What sells her? Her music? Her voice? Her personal life? Her legs?

Now consider another question: what would be Celine Dion’s music net selling? She sold 200 million copies, this is audited, but how many people threw the CDs in the garbage, had it stolen (including mine), gave it to charity, friends or acquaintances (to be thrown in the garbage once again)? In the end, total number of sold copies minus number of tossed copies would be 50 million? 35 million perhaps? It doesn’t matter, it would eventually be a big figure anyway. Mechanisms to calculate retention of loyal fans are still oblivious to marketers. Very likely they’re not even thinking about it. Once you stuffed an artist’s music to someone the work is done, at least until the next release. Such kind of product is all about acquisition, little back-end.

I shall get back to the point though. Can someone explain why or at least how she sells? This is one of those marketing contradictions who just don’t go away easily.

The beauty of uniqueness in marketing and vice-versa

Once I had the chance to receive a link that surprisingly made my day and probably my week and month.

http://www.responseproject.com/

The Response Project by New Page Corp was a grateful surprise in a world where people think PR is marketing (unfortunately including some marketers). It was like watching a bunch of rocket scientists walking in a catwalk during a fashion show in Milan. It sounds weird (meaning unique in this case), but eventually entertaining and educative.