Put it in a pot

I have to admit that it is not so uncommon for Maura and me to find ourselves without food. I’m not talking about famine from the African plain, but for people who are used to either following a well scripted recipe or heating up Digiorno, finding yourself with a block of cheese, a nearly picked bare baked chicken, four thousand different condiments and two cans of cheap domestic beer means that there’s no food. One with MacGyver-like skills might boil what’s left of the chicken with salt to make a broth, and then combine with the beer and cheese to make a very excellent beer cheese soup. If you have some leftover celery sticks or carrots (ours are often from an order of chicken wings), cut up the veggies and add them as well. This end result has made Maura and me a decent meal when we unable or unwilling to trek to the grocery store.

Other popular fun gourmet includes fried rice made with any frozen vegetables we can find and very interesting salads made with grapes, shallots, whatever cheese is hanging around and the combination of a condiment like hot sauce and a dressing such as Caesar.

But the result is not always so appetizing. We once made a bread pudding that came out more like a quiche. I tried to season venison with tea leaves one time. I know, it sounds nasty, but at the time it seemed like a good idea. The venison smelled so awful that we didn’t even try to eat it. I threw it to the dogs and they refused as well. We even have had the occasional beer cheese soup go terribly wrong. Our first attempt was made with a skunky import and Gouda. The result was so stringy that we nearly suffocated trying to eat it.

The thing about a leftover gourmet is that sometimes you get lemonade from lemons. Sometimes you just get lemon juice. Sure, I occasionally amaze Maura and myself, but you are really taking a chance when you commit to making dinner out of whatever you didn’t eat since you went shopping too long ago. It is more our habit to do the opposite and go to the store nearly everyday. I know it horrifies diet experts and financial gurus, but we simply enjoy the ritual of shopping together for the night’s meal. We like good eating and that you cannot always leave to the chance of leftovers.

I like having a recipe at work as well. I hate having to hodgepodge whatever is in the fridge when it seems the guest I’m serving wants me to throw it together in a pot and have it come out like Emeril himself cooked it. The entrée which I am talking about is a marketing plan. I have cooked them up with the recipe and received five stars. I have cooked them up with whatever I had in the fridge and the consumer critic found it an interesting delight. But other times, when the plans are laid sans recipe, my dogs wouldn’t eat it even if you smothered it in gravy.

I am not entirely certain what motivates people to commit large sums of money to a plan that has hardly been planned. A typical excuse is “we already know what our strategy should be,” to which the reply to my further inquiry is “we believe in innovation.” Sure, that’s real strategic, differentiating stuff.

Another justification for failing to plan is similar to Maura’s and my oft-used excuse for not going to the store. With Maura being a social worker and me spending my time doing things like writing this to you, we often complain we just don’t have the time. Marketing planners should find the time. Maura and I are changing our perspective as we have committed to eating smarter and healthier. We no longer just eat whatever is there. If I eat yogurt for breakfast, I need my granola and if I want my granola, I need to go buy it. I just can’t substitute breadcrumbs or allspice for granola. A desired outcome requires a commitment.

Not having the time to plan for marketing is not a marketing problem, it is a corporate problem. If marketing is truly concerned with how the product or service is delivered and compensated in a particular corporation, then it should be at the heart of corporate planning and not some tertiary concern regulated to whatever resources are left over after the donation to the zoo is made. Sure, go ahead and laugh. I know a $30 million company in a marketing-dependent industry that doesn’t even have a marketing department. That’s how important it is to them. How’s it working? Well, they only closed 50% of the number of locations they grew by last year. Some strategy.

So what exactly is the type of planning I am talking about? What kind of recipe from what type of book and where on earth are you going to find the ingredients? Well, I’ll tell you, and if you are in higher elevations, you might want to adjust your oven.

The list of ingredients.

One part fresh and high quality research.

Sure you could use that 20-year-old research and the result might come out alright, but considering how much the wrong research could ruin the rest of the ingredients (which you paid for), you might as well get the fresh stuff.

As for quality, don’t look for foie gras at the dollar store. If you are going to tack major efforts to the suggestions of the research, be willing to spend what it should take to get it right. This is not time to skimp and get a crack team of juniors or interns. I have said it before, cheap stuff ain’t good and good stuff ain’t cheap.

Season to taste

It sure would be something if marketing plans could be developed with consumer research and then be directly implemented without modification. But this is the real world, and you have to cook with what you got. Once a plan has begun to develop, it is best to consult with all facets of the company that will touch said plan. Production, distribution and field sales are critical; however, they should not be the only ones.

Careful, you want to let others taste a nearly finished dish, not consult on how to cook it. Too many chefs in the kitchen spoil the pie along with the ad campaign.

Let it simmer

My favorite part about a campaign is when we know we got it just right and then we let it simmer to think about what might go well with it. Time away from the problem helps enliven new contiguous concepts like promotions, new products and all myriad of in-strategy maneuvers. It is worth it to let it simmer. As for the beer cheese soup, don’t just eat it, serve it with some fresh French bread if you have it.


You never burn a good roux.


I use a roux in my gumbo and etouffée but I also use it in soups, sauces and red beans and rice. For those who have never made it, a roux is simply flour fried in oil. You want to get a nice chocolate brown, but if you overdo it, it will be bitter. You should charge into marketing with no less discipline (perhaps more, considering that gumbo doesn’t cost you $2.5 million). Take your time. Know the characteristics of the equipment you are using. Use high quality ingredients and don’t be afraid to ask advice from someone who has made a gumbo you enjoy.


Successful marketing is a combination of elements you buy and elements you already have. When done haphazardly with carelessness, it is simply not worth the effort. When done correctly the result is always better the sum of the ingredients. When the preparation is thoughtful, you can taste it. I like to think that the proof is in the beer cheese soup.


Snowden Tatarski is a marketing consultancy based in Athens, Georgia that focuses on the development and implementation strategic marketing plans. The company offers marketing research, marketing strategies, advertising development, media strategy and planning, sales consultation, trade communication strategies and the production of advertising, sales collateral, broadcast and interactive systems and materials. Information online at www.sn-ta.com

Brand flew over the cuckoo's nest

When I was in college, the psychology major seemed to attract many of the campus crazies. I know because I was one of them. This notion was confirmed when my 1101 professor told us students that if we were taking the class to find out what was wrong with us to get out. Later, in a clinical class, we took a popular psychological test and the professor reassured us, “don’t worry, psych majors always score high on the dissociative/psychotic spectrum.”

Well, that’s a relief.

I had originally set out in academia with the goal of being a clinician, but my other two majors, keg parties and sorority girls, left little time for all that extra studying. There is always that awkward moment in the upper level psych class when the professor asks what everyone will do after graduation, to which 99% of the class says “grad school” and I say “following the jam band Widespread Panic and selling veggie burritos out of my Subaru for gas money.”

I did get the book, however. The book is the manual for a practicing psychologist. No, it does not contain special instructions or insight into Freud’s coke habit. It’s far more important than that. The book contains the numerical assignments of diagnoses which psychologists used to get paid by insurance companies. The book is the Diagnostic Statistic Manual or DSM.

Do you pee in your pants to show anger or frustration? Then you might get a diagnosis of diurnal enuresis #307.6. Have a grandiose sense of self importance, sense of entitlement, lack of empathy for others and do not work in Hollywood? You might just be #301.81 or narcissistic personality disorder. The DSM makes a diagnosis along a five axis system. Each axis represents a sector that affects psychological health, and they are as follows:

1) clinical disorders
2) personality disorders
3) general medical conditions
4) psychosocial and environmental problems
5) global assessment of functioning


The result is a fuller way of looking at a person and their ability to function in society.
As marketers, we like to personify our products and brands. We talk about their maturity, strength and personality. Sometimes with make little idiograms of people that represent our brands. Our brands are very much like people to us, which makes this marketer think we should put them on the couch.

Tell me about your mother.

A brand should check in with the head shrinkers from time to time- not because there is a problem, but simply from the passage of time as those closest to the brand may need a little dialogue. Then again you might need a confrontation to talk about the brand’s issues so that they don’t get out of control.

I believe we all sit in the psychologist seat from time to time when it comes to brands. We talk about personality and aspirations. We talk about how well our brand plays with others. We deserve a way to evaluate and measure our brand’s mental health.

So here it is.

Dr. Snowden’s diagnostic and statistical measure of brand mental health (or, the SnowDSM, trademark applied for).


I) Clinical disorders (who exactly are you)

In the real DSM, this is where schizophrenia goes. In the SnowDSM it’s the same. Sometimes brands are confused. They react to threats that are not there. They see opportunities in the market that are nothing but hallucinations. To the rest of us, they just appear odd.

This is the place to boil down who you really are. A brand is as much the sum of perspectives as anything else. Understanding the consumer perspective, the marketer’s perspective and the distance between the two is what this axis is all about.


II) Personality disorders

Some of our greatest leaders have total narcissism. There are personality traits that have been celebrated in one era only to be loathed in another. If you’re going to put the brand on the couch for any reason, a personality inventory is as good as reason as any.

Where axis one and axis two differ is in internal company awareness. In axis one, the company is simply unaware or deluded into a particular thought stream. In axis two, they just don’t care.

I have had a number of clients insist we should simply change the way people think. I’m not saying draw consumers towards a particular action or sway opinion. I’m saying we’ve been asked to abruptly present information counter to a consumer’s perspective and change their minds.

Amazingly enough, we’ve pulled it off a few times. However, there are no guarantees in marketing and pursuing a consumer with a myopic and self-centered orientation rarely works.



III) General medical condition

Time takes its toll on brands much like it does on people. That once vibrant, youthful vigor is now referred to as the everyday grind. The excitement of the brand has, perhaps, begun to wane and fresh ideas are put down like a lame dog.

Axis three is more about the internal wants and desires for a brand. Sometimes simply milking the profit from an old and entrenched position is the aim. Sometimes a brand needs a new regiment and one would be wise to very much consider issues which fall under this axis before the budget is written.

IV) Psychosocial and environmental problems (educational, occupational, economic and legal problems)

I have yet to see marketing truly exist in a bubble. Outside forces inevitably affect a brand and to ignore such forces is not wise. As markets crest and fall, strategies should seek to ride the wave rather than be swept away by it.

There is caution here. Occasionally, marketing focuses on addressing the problems in this axis to the exclusion of other efforts. I have seen a client move a huge share of the resources to defending a lawsuit through the newspaper. The problem: most consumers didn’t really care about the lawsuit and when they stopped hearing the companies’ main pitch, the company was forgotten.

And that brings up another word on strategy.


V) Global assessment of functioning.

The strategy is the heart. A feasible and potent strategy is the key and should be the barometer to the brand’s overall health. No matter what the execution, marketers should be constantly testing and evolving a strategy to meet impending needs.

If a company’s marketing efforts are waning, strategy is the first place to look. Is the brand promise doable? Is there sufficient pull from consumers to justify the brand promise? Do we have the tactic to make a compelling case?

Take two and call me in the morning.

Take a moment or two and think about your brand’s personality. If that brand were a person, would you like to be friends with it? Would you find your brand to be a valuable friend? Would you seek out similar relationships?

If the answers are no, you might send your brand to the shrink. Take heed in the famous words: “Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.” Freud said that and I agree with him. Cocaine fiend or not.



Snowden Tatarski is a brand consultancy based in Athens, Ga that focuses on the development and implementation of the whole brand experience. The agency offers marketing research, marketing strategies, advertising creative development, media strategy and planning, sales consultation and the production of advertising, sales collateral, broadcast and interactive systems and materials. Information online at www.sn-ta.com

Everything Changes

Richard Tatarski is no guiltier than most of us. It’s tough being a kid and perhaps the toughest part is fitting in with the crowd that you would most like to fit in with. My beloved friend and business partner will, with a little prodding, recall for us the whimsical days when he was (in his words) a skater punk. He had a skater mullet and wore skater shirts. I don’t know if he had the requisite footwear or Vision Street Wear, but I am sure that footwear and all other accompaniments fit nicely into the “sk8 or die” brand.

Chicks don’t dig skaters - or at least the type of girls that Richard likes don’t. They wanted a man who wore Z. Cavariccis when Richard was wearing some sort of shorts made by Powell Peralta. The girls wanted a guy who could dance like MC Hammer and properly wear a bolo. While he had some good friends with this crowd, this was not Tatarski one bit, but we all know that fitting in has its dues. The times, they were a-changing, and Tatarski needed to get with it. He needed a costume change.

Abrupt costume changes are important moments for their stark admittance that we are social creatures in need of the security of the pack and the ample fodder to be consumed in the lunchroom, along with corn dogs and Neapolitan ice cream sandwiches. There have been more spectacular costume changes than Richard’s. Our friend Mike went from Lonsdale skinhead in all his 18-hole combat boots and Fred Perry shirt glory to a chinos-and-sweater man literally overnight. The best conversion I’ve ever seen was a different Mike who was the person who finally gave up trying to fit in with the preppies and resorted to a punk rock metamorphosis. This person entered the chrysalis with a seemingly benign accessory (like a wallet chain) and emerged with a spiked Mohawk and a dog collar.

Richard was the reverse. One day he went home a skater. The next day: enter casual Richard. He traded his Corrosion of Conformity shirts for cardigans and drawstrings for those cute little braider belts that, when properly tied, makes an interesting knot that points at the ground. Richard claims he can still achieve this knot although we have yet to locate a properly braided belt on which he can demonstrate.

Richard is candid about his costume change and for a good reason. He made the change in response to real social forces and did, if for only a while, achieve the intended result. Looking back, Richard will tell you he would have preferred to just be himself (which even today is more skater than preppy). However, the reality on the grounds of Duluth Middle School was that the right style got noticed and if you didn’t have that style, you might consider a change.

Today, Richard’s style includes BMW fanatic. Our office regularly receives deliveries of Richard’s Bavarian auto parts and the work day is occasionally accented with the offer to ride in his vintage 2002tii sedan that will make you smell like exhaust. Richard lives the BMW brand. He participates in the discussion groups online about proper tunings and restoration techniques. He can have a lengthy discussion with you about how the handling characteristics found in his 1973 2002tii OR his grey market 1980 525i can be sensed all these years later in a new M5. He went with me to visit Jim Nelems at the Marketing Workshop, not because Jim is a trusted and excellent partner of some consultation projects, but because it was a chance to see Jim’s cherry 635i, M5 or custom M7.

When BMW made a costume change, Richard was crestfallen. He called me and I consoled him, but as time continued we ended up making each other feel worse as we cursed the impending prospect of the ultimate driving machine becoming the ultimate idea machine. Advertising patriarch Pat Fallon would love Richard. In fact, Richard thought Pat and company had him in mind when they developed BMW films, a genius concept that included several short films shot by top directors in which the Bimmer plays a central, but not gratuitous, lead role. We watched the films over and over, salivating over the M5’s cornering in a spot shot by Guy Richie in which his wife (Madonna) wets herself, partially from the fear/exhilaration that only a few hundred horsepower planted and glued to a rail handling can provide.

And then there was a few weeks ago. Richard called me to say he had seen a print ad pitching the Bimmer as some sort of cure for the seven year itch. Now those of you who read me with any regularity know I am not a bit shy about letting my copy shy on the blue side. But this is my car you’re talking about: my 525i which I buffed to a gleaming shine and moisturized the seats with special seat sun tan oil. Don’t mess with my car and don’t ever reference it when discussing a social disease.

For those who don’t know, BMW has undergone perhaps the most watched costume change up until Britney Spears went bald. A feisty little marketing team decided to poke and tease Pat Fallon by calling his work into account, and old Pat responded but opting out of the selection process, ending an era of reinvention, intense distillation and focus of the brand efforts and the profitable sale of many, many, many cars.

But you know how it goes. The new kid comes in and all of a sudden everything that was done is now has-been and if there is little turning around to be done, they’re going to finally get things turned around. I have seen enough of these situations that I feel a little nostalgic just writing about it.

Brands make costume changes. They changes positions and logos and advertising messages. They change for the business’s sake and they change for the sake of changing. They evolve from their past and they forget the past and seem bent on repeating failures. And then repeating failures again. It’s as if one day being the coolest of the skater punks is not good enough and the brand begs mom to take it to the mall to get some topsiders.

The thing about a costume change is that you really have to go all in if you want any chance of success. You can’t be a skin-prep or a skater-jock. It needs to be a whole and holistic change. No easing into it or partial commitment. Jump halfway across a ditch and guess where you’ll end up? Also, there is always the risk that a new peer group will reject you like an organ with the wrong blood type. And then where do you go?

This is an important question for brands. At what point is a costume change necessary, poised for success, required for survival? I wish I had a quick answer, but I don’t. I only have a few suggestions and remember, they are deduced from the fact that Richard Tatarski one day decided to stop wearing shirts with skulls and crossbones on them and instead wear pants that cinch at the waist and cuffs while ballooning at the leg and have the label prominently displayed on the zipper. In other words, my advice or not, change your costume at your own risk.

Before you wear MC hammer pants, make sure MC Hammer pants are really cool.

Hammer pants were a practical joke played on a generation of American youth. The pants looked like giant tribal dresses and because Hammer always wore them shirtless (or perhaps with a small leather vest), no kid from the suburbs was ever going to pull off that look. Instead, most kids looked like a homeless genie with a mullet.

Yet, despite this, how many companies make huge amounts of noise to announce that they are transforming themselves into a brand that seems dated before the ink of the business cards is dry? AT&T is my favorite new example of a company in MC Hammer pants. With its futurist manifesto commercials of bespectacled tech CEOs doing yoga with a cheesy faux-emo theme song, AT&T brings back all the fun memories of the dotcom era, except now you can’t get rich off it. I don’t know that I have ever seen a company that is in business today seem to wish so badly that it was still 1995. Their image is a tour d’flop of everything that’s wrong with yesteryear communication conglomerates. Their insistence to dissolve the brand of Cingular (a solid and inspired brand) and revert to AT&T (a brand synonymous with the worst service and the least concern about customers) is just another example of people aspiring to a heyday that is, like the pants, way out of style. Oh, but they put “the new” in front of AT&T. Yeah, that’ll work.

Why not just love yourself?

I had one particular client who went out on a limb and was rewarded for it. We approached with a gutsy concept, and the client’s courage turned into a wildly successful and award-winning radio campaign. I hate to brag, but we put the pants on a few big agencies with this campaign and at least three other restaurants copied us with blatant rip-offs.

And then, out of the blue, the client wanted a change. Not because sales were down. Not because customers had complained. Not because of old content (we were producing at least two new spots a month). No, it was just change for the sake of change. It was that casual.

Some times change is good. And sometimes change is just change. When Richard decided to change, he had a goal in mind. After all, you don’t subject yourself to the possible merciless taunting of 13-year-olds without a strong motivator. But I have seen and met a few who think change is progress, even if the result is progress towards nothing more than acquisition or bankruptcy. Smart businesses should have a goal and then audit all proposed activities related to a change in the brand. That which furthers a needed change should be kept and that which does not should find a spot next the bolos and Hammer pants at the dump.

Car seat in an IROC.

The opposite of change is what I like to call the car seat in an IROC theorem. On special occasions, Maura and I will venture up to the drug store to get something that doesn’t warrant a trip to the grocery store. The drug store is next to the dollar store, bowling ally and at least one liquor store, thereby elevating the chances that we’ll see someone loading their kids in the back of an IROC-Z. You just know this was their high school car and they probably still have cassette tapes sandwiched between the Kicker subwoofer and the six pack of Zima.

Sometimes you need a change and just don’t know it. This need for change is not limited to just a logo or website. Marketers should be thinking about how the brand applies to the ever-changing consumer and update pitches and messages accordingly.

Perhaps no one should eat more on this message than the folks at Chick-fil-a. The cows were funny at the start, and those of us who have followed the campaign have oooooed and ahhhed with each silly cow antic. But imagine you didn’t have any background on the campaign. Imagine you never saw the effort materialized and evolve, and instead your only introduction is to one group of animals attempting to dodge their impending slaughter by suggesting the slaughter and consumption of another. Don’t you just love it?

Ch-ch-changes.

No situation is better for knowing when, why and how to change than to have a constant ear and eye to the customer. I believe that customers love brands and want a brand to stay relevant to them as they make their way through life. Brands and managers are wise to listen, make relevant and grow with the consumer and their changing wants, needs and desires. A responsive brand commands loyalty and therefore better opportunity for success. Truly, that’s what it comes down to: increasing the opportunity to find success. That’s what we’re in business for. That’s what we plan for, that’s what we pursue.

And that never changes.


Snowden Tatarski is a marketing consultancy based in Athens, Georgia that focuses on the development and implementation strategic marketing plans. The company offers marketing research, marketing strategies, advertising development, media strategy and planning, sales consultation, trade communication strategies and the production of advertising, sales collateral, broadcast and interactive systems and materials. Information online at www.sn-ta.com

Fries with that.

When I was fifteen, I got a demeaning job at a greasy, disgusting fast food restaurant. I grilled burgers, sliced lettuce and cleaned dead rats out of the grease trap. It was such a joy to have my first work experience molded by the meth addicts and ex-cons who used the esteemed power they had as shift managers to harass and terrorize the staff. Oh, the wonder years.

It was a hotter and greasier day than normal, and I was working the grill when the cheerleading squad came in for burgers. They were dressed in short shorts and tank tops. I stood there, with my grill mate who could barely speak English at my side, both of us covered in so much grease that at the at the end of the shift we would have to peel off our uniforms. I locked eyes with one of the cheerleaders.
That was the end of my fast food experience.

I immediately enrolled in lifeguard classes. Despite the fact that I couldn’t really swim, a year on the wrestling team and a persistent mom got me through the classes and I became a certified lifeguard. I took my classes in Virginia Beach, Virginia, which meant the training was geared toward guarding the beach. The classes were like boot camp and I spent most evenings after class puking up the pool water that I had swallowed when the instructor put forth his best effort to drown me.

True to my purpose in becoming a lifeguard, my first post was at the local pool propagated by the local cheerleaders who, save for the occasional chicken fight, spent their time laying about the pool deck. Was this really a job? I’m watching girls in bikinis have a slap and tickle fight with each other and someone is going to pay me?

Honestly, I felt guilty when I got my first paycheck. At the burger joint, I got covered in more filth and garbage than an ATO pledge for a measly five bucks an hour. Now I was getting six an hour to watch the local cuties spritz themselves. It’s hard to feel like you’re really working when you’re a lifeguard.

I have met at least a few marketers who are like lifeguards. Somewhere deep inside, they feel guilty about asking for money. They duck behind image campaigns or price-offs, anything just to avoid asking for the sale.

I’m a little old (and less shapely) to be a lifeguard anymore, but I still wince when I ask for money. After all, I love marketing and it doesn’t feel like work to me, so why should you pay me? Well, first off, I’m married to a social worker, which means my wife gets paid two banana peels, fourteen food stamps, a few dry beans and a half-eaten bag of frosted donuts each month. Since the mortgage company takes none of these things as payment, I have to charge people for our services.

My mentor who is a lively, spirited (and though not tall, larger than life) man gives me great advice much like a kung fu master or perhaps a Jedi. He recently asked me, “Young grasshopper, are you getting paid for each hour of work you complete for clients?”

“No master,” I responded.

“You work for a fool and must stop.” He shot back.

But I work for myself and the firm.” I responded

“Exactly.”He replied

Note: It is important that you know my mentor is a sweet and honorable man and would never call me a fool unless I really deserved it (which I’m pretty sure I’ve yet to do). Paraphrasing and modification of his comments was needed to maintain Kung Fu imagery.

It’s foolish to not ask for the sale. It’s foolish to advertise without wanting an action. Maybe the action is to change an opinion or consider a service, but whatever you do, have a desired purpose when you have an audience. The master has shown me the way (or, the force if you prefer) of asking for the sale, whatever the sale may be. His nearly magical three step process is reprinted here so that you need not shave your head, sojourn and seek his tutelage.


1) Master says to grasshopper, get beyond the guilt of selling or I’ll smack you.

There is no crime in getting paid what you’re worth. Be it a brand, item or service, value should be compensated. It is easy to start chiseling at the bottom line with justifications like “our margins can allow us to reduce price.” But the truth is, if you cannot respect your offering enough to stand by the price, what do you expect purchasers to do? People pay what they think things are worth.

When you give a fair offering at a fair price, there should be no second guessing. One way to NOT accomplish this is to simply charge what you think the consumer will pay. Instead, simply charge what the consumer should pay (relative to R and D costs, manufacturing, marketing, profit, etc) and stand by it. It is amazing the change in attitude when the seller knows the price and proposition are rooted in logic and fair play.

One of the core tenets in the development of the concept of branding was that the consumers desire to support the brand would negate the need for continual sales and price wars. Some brands are sticking to this notion but others have allowed their brand to become know as “those guys who have a sale every week”.

2) Master says to grasshopper, respect the seller/ consumer relationship and the mutual expectation/ responsibility.

It is too often and too bad when the balance between a consumer and a marketer is disrupted. Often companies view consumers like cattle who stampede in when the right product is thrown in the pen and then crap all over the place. It is not so uncommon that marketer has a less than flattering view of consumers. Consumers sometimes don’t hold up their end of the deal either. Ever get behind one of those people who always complain at the burger joint just to get free junk?

What exists between buyers and sellers is a relationship based on quality, expectation, brand identity, affinity, value, and shared importance. Trying to tip the scales to the favor of one of these at the expense of the other never works out.

3) Master says to grasshopper, the worst they can say is “no” (or perhaps “hell no”).

You really don’t know until you ask. When you run a commercial that doesn’t seem to want the sell, you’re better off not advertising. Maybe it’s the plain fear of the word “no” that has led companies to skirt the question. Think about it: if you never ask for the business, you can never get shot down. Sounds like high school.

The savvy marketer should be ready to hear no and follow it up with a why. “No”’ indicates failures of the brand to connect. “No” indicates a pocket of influence that is not swayed. “No” teaches us not only that the ship is listing but where the leak is.

Marketers need to stop being afraid of their own shadows and instead begin to stick it out there and ask for the sale. That next inquirer may be a future fan or user for life, but you’ll never know if you’re not actively trying to spur action. Perhaps one day people will just know everything they want and need and we advertisers won’t need to educate customers and ask for their business. Until then, we need to ask.


Snowden Tatarski is a brand consultancy based in Athens, Ga that focuses on the development and implementation of the whole brand experience. The agency offers marketing research, marketing strategies, advertising creative development, media strategy and planning, sales consultation and the production of advertising, sales collateral, broadcast and interactive systems and materials. Information online at www.sn-ta.com

Horatio jumped the shark.

Normally my wife and I share television preferences. We love Studio 60. We like Law and Order. We tolerate Heroes. But CSI Miami suits my wife’s palate while I think it’s a dish best left un-served. I’d rather degrease my bike than watch CSI Miami. It wasn’t always that way. Initially, we would watch the show if only to make fun of the patronizing portrayal of the clichéd southern belle turned cop and the airhead kid who looks like the happenstance of being a crime investigator just happened to be a convenient detour from following the Warped Tour. That, and the dauntingly dramatic dumb-dumb Horatio. It’s worth watching CSI Miami if only to make fun of Horatio.

Horatio is not your typical cop. He looks like the Mad Magazine spokes-cartoon Alfred E. Newman except he wears all black and cheesy sunglasses. Horatio does have one superpower, however. He can instantly and powerfully pick the most stupid one-liners to follow each pocket of drama, and he delivers these lines in a voice that one might imagine Don Corleone’s pillow talk might have sounded. It’s kind of like Schwarzenegger’s cheesy deliveries of “I’ll be back” or “He had to blow off some steam!” (famously said in Commando after he impales an enemy into a boiler and steam rushes out of the pipe). So imagine Schwarzenegger but 130 pounds lighter, seven shades paler, bright red hair and instead of having Arnold’s famously tough character names like John Matrix, John Kimble, “Dutch" Schaefer, and the ultimate, Conan the Barbarian, Horatio rolls off the tongue of toughness into the sink. Hey, don’t get your feelings hurt: movie tough guys don’t get names like Jeff either.

But I don’t care that Horatio dresses like he works at a New York ad agency. I don’t really mind that he sounds like he’s gargling hot asphalt. I can tolerate the fact that he delivers his lines with the proficiency of an understudy in the Folsom State Prison Christmas play.

I didn’t give up on Horatio until he jumped the shark.

Within a forgettable plot, Horatio is on a hill with a sniper rifle. (Remember, he is a crime scene investigator that works in a lab.) A terrorist-driven box truck comes over the hill to assault freedom, and Horatio, with a single shot, blows the truck into a million bits. He probably had some kitschy line like “light my fire” as well, but I stopped listening

That, my friends, is a textbook case of jumping the shark.

Jumping the shark is a not-so-old term used to describe when a television program has run out of good ideas and is on bad idea life support. Like the fact the hit hospital drama ER has resorted to helicopter crashes and hospital shootings in every episode just to keep things interesting. The original shark jump can be attributed to Henry Winkler, aka the Fonz. Apparently, Happy Days ratings were not so happy and writers decided that one solution to raise interest would be to have Fonzie compete in a water skiing contest during which he would jump a shark. Yes, he would jump a shark. Henceforth, television programs with endless plot extensions, characters returning from the dead multiple times and successive episodes of at least one character in the reoccurring cast getting shot are said to have jumped the shark. And now you know.

But we can’t save such a fun term just for TV. I mean, come on, TV already has its exclusives like telethons and Ryan Seacrest. Is TV really the only place were a shark gets jumped? I’ll answer the question with a question. Remember when Buick resurrected Harvey Earl to hawk their cars? As if the only answer to fading brand excitement was to bring old Harvey back from the dead. Yeah, cleared the shark by two feet.

And how do you drag an old barn side American brand like Maxwell House into the new millennium? Well, you keep the hokey imagery but then have good ole red-blooded Americans sing a British pop song with enthusiasm not seen since Designing Women jumped the shark all those years ago. Look out sharks, Maxwell House coming over head!

It’s not hard for a brand to jump the shark in its marketing. It is difficult to find the right mix and chemistry for a marketing plan, so it is understandable that marketers might want to dance with the one that brought them. But brands do age and unlike sharks, they don’t always have a second set of teeth to take a bite out of the competition when opportunity avails. Simply put, relevance to the consumer must be kept relevant. However, it is important to know that such a shark jumping demise is not imminent for a brand. Had Fonzie meandered down another plot line with interest, perhaps he never would have come anywhere near the sign up table for the water skiing contest.

Brands can insulate themselves from sharks and waterskiing contests by performing a few thoughtful tasks.

1) Don't make any sudden movements.

Brands often grow stale and therefore feel forced to make knee-jerk reactions. The results are often undesirable. Instead, marketers should consider brand planning as a long-term strategy which evolves in the market. Of course, all this could be eliminated by continually refreshing the brand. Which brings up……

2) Review the brand continuously.

The exercise of reviewing a brand and its relevance to the consumer is not like going to the dentist twice a year. It needs to be done daily. All efforts that are meant to be touch points with consumers need to be reviewed with the brand for relevance and then the brand itself needs to be evaluated with the different opportunities and products. It is crucial to gauge consumer attitudes for each touch point. Marketers are wise to update and refresh their brands and to glean new insight with every single interaction they have with the consumer.

3) Know thy true self.

Brands have a tendency to think of themselves within the context of their founding or heyday. This is a mistake. It is important to understand the role of the brand in the consumer's life and how that role functions in the present day and the days to come.

An important note: Points 1 and 2 are different. Point 1 refers to strategy which should be rooted, strong and hard to change. Point 2 refers to tactics which should be updated with time. It is important to point this out, as many companies change strategy at every coffee break but keep a tactic for some faux nostalgia they insist consumers have.

Want to be in a water skiing contest?

All businesses age, and the ones that are successful through multiple decades have a commitment to learn from every interaction. The greater message here is for marketing to get the same tinkering and refining as R&D does. Manufacturing is improved by R&D to save money and effort. So can be the effort of continued improvements of functioning and relevance to consumers.

The alternative is to suck the potency out of the brand and allow it to expire into irrelevance. You may try to reenergize the brand and jumping that shark may not seem like that bad of an idea. Just remember, even if Fonzie had won the water skiing contest with his amazing and flawless shark jump, Happy Days still lost.




Snowden Tatarski is a brand consultancy based in Athens, Georgia that focuses on the development and implementation of the whole brand experience. The agency offers marketing research, marketing strategies, advertising creative development, media strategy and planning, sales consultation and the production of advertising, sales collateral, broadcast and interactive systems and materials. Information online at www.sn-ta.com

Me and the Tank

Me and the Tank

Back in the day, I played B-squad noseguard for the Wildcats at Shorty Howell Park in Duluth, Georgia. I was ten, weighed slightly more than an overstuffed scarecrow and was the second team stand-in for “The Tank,” a massive kid comprised entirely of Mrs. Winner’s chicken, Mazzio’s pizza and a mullet. Tank was so big that his uniform doubled as a pool cover in the off season. You could see the fear in the other team’s (and their parents’) eyes as Tank took the field. Tank was a sweet kid with a heart made of gold, or at least chocolate cake. He was a rough redneck, but when you look like the kid who ate the fat kid, you gotta be tough.

Unfortunately Coaches Steve, Tommy and Moon couldn’t harness the power of the tank. While he was bigger than a nuclear submarine, he simply couldn’t clear the hole for the linebacker or drive the hole and rip off the quarterback’s head. Once, I even lined up against Tank and found that running in to him was somewhat like running into a mattress. He wouldn’t push you back, and you weren’t going to push him either. You just kind of mashed into him and occasionally, he’d fall over on you. And while you think he’d be heavy, he just kind of spread out so the weight was well distributed. Tank was a big kid with a big heart (figuratively, of course) who simply couldn’t be harnessed to play nose guard.

It’s been a long time since I played at Shorty Howell Park, but I bet even then marketers talked about taming a looming giant that could easily have taken them to the championships. Their tank is much older and can be much meaner. He’s brought down formidable quarterbacks, giant corporations and powerful politicians. This tank has led revolutions, built businesses from the ground up and sold so much stuff that a Wal-Mart the size of Oklahoma couldn’t hold it all. Yet no one can tame it.

The Tank is word of mouth.
To marketers, harnessing the power of word of mouth would be like finding the Ark of the Covenant in Atlantis with the Holy Grail inside. Word of mouth comes with a certain truthfulness and authority as we humans err on the side of believing each other. Word of mouth comes with a unique adaptation quality that caters the message to the receiver simply though the dance of polite conversation. Word of mouth has a special draw, as marketers dream of the day when they can tell all those pesky and peppy media reps to shove it where the TV don’t shine. No wonder it’s so elusive.

A few snake charmers have claimed to harness the power of word of mouth. Peddlers of endorsement radio claim to be selling word of mouth, but what it appears to me that they are selling is the same endorsement structure popularized back when radio was invented. This is not to discount the power of radio endorsements, but to say that having a DJ recommend a product, by virtue of believability, mechanism (it’s not in person, friends) and broad audience with little ability to narrow or cater the pitch indicates endorsement radio is far from word of mouth.

Now there are some fools you can pay to talk about your product. For a low, low price they will infiltrate social networks, peer groups and blogs and extol the virtues of your new cell phone, Crock Pot or herbal body mist. The only problem is the enthusiasm is bought, and therefore typically fake. Plus, the bought enthusiasm also typically accompanies a canned sales pitch which is hardly believable.

So is all hope lost? Are you, like Indiana Jones, destined only to see the Grail for a fleeting moment only to have it fall down a giant earthen crack faithfully recreated by Hollywood? (Or alternately, are you to find the Ark only to have it stolen by Nazis then lost by the US government in a giant warehouse?) Take solace, Dr. Jones. I have your treasure map right here.

OK. I don’t have the key to word of mouth and I don’t think anyone does. But we are smart people and I bet we can dissect the issue to its core. So grab your hat and bullwhip and let’s go blow up some old stuff.

1) Word of mouth thrives on interest.

So, duh, make your product interesting. Every product can have a story that builds intrigue. Look at your product like a consumer and find the hidden intrigue. Maybe your story is in how people use the product. How does it affect their lives? And if all else fails and it turns out your product truly is boring, invent a story. When the crew at John Hancock wanted to add spice to the poi of financial services, they shot a commercial featuring two lesbians adopting a child from China. The spot solicited gasps, death threats and calls from officials in the People’s Republic. Well that, and so many new policies that Hancock was propelled to the insurance first string. The spot was stark, honest, human and provided water cooler banter for weeks. So the moral of the story is: tell better stories.

2) Word of mouth thrives on mystique and exclusivity.

For many people, the thrill of word of mouth is discovering something and then enlightening their peer group to it. The product, concept or idea then spreads down a chain of various pitch people and adopters. The delicate recipe to set off this chain reaction thrives on mystique. Fostering mystiques is not as much about what it is you do as what it is you don’t do.:
Do: Create a product which has inherent mystique. If it is a service make it a little more exclusive. Not everyone can afford a Dyson, which is why we all want one. If it is a food, make it more exotic or authentic or unusual. What ever it takes, give it some interest.
Don’t take a dumb product and slather hype on it. Jay Z wouldn’t drive just any SUV off the lot. He had to take three years to invent his own color called Jay Z Blue (very creative). I bet you anyone who has a Jay Z blue SUV is gonna let you know that interesting fact within a minute of meeting them.
Do: Create an ad that has a specific voice, persona and attitude which the targeted top of your consumer chain will find intriguing.
Don’t puke out a trite, celebrity-worshiping porno-mercial of Paris Hilton or any other movie star making out with your product.
Do: Have your PR folks pitch the press, where they have to earn the story with a good pitch and approach.
Don’t have your PR folks get stories in magazines where they know the editor (or have some sort of “in”) who will run whatever garbage is sent over. Media that have a good grasp on readers know how to turn a pitch into a story that will have appeal to its group. Simple lesson: Let the editors make the translation. P.S. do not try to force them to print your mission, vision or any other kind of statement. The only mystique about most mission statements is how anyone got so many words to into one vague and vapid sentence.

3) Word of mouth thrives on information.

I admit it, Tatarski and I are both gear heads. Not just cars, all gear. Not too many people know this, but long before we started Snowden Tatarski, Richard and I were climbing buddies. Rock climbing is an interesting sport in that it is so dangerous, the gear manufactures try to protect themselves by being as thorough as possible in their sales literature. They tell you what you can do with the product and what you shouldn’t do. They tell you what the product does, doesn’t and what other people might use it to do. Of course all of this information is saddled next to breathtaking photos of somebody climbing Mount Death over a desert somewhere.

When people are passionately interested in an item, they crave information. Cars, computers, climbing gear and so many other items have a myriad of magazines, Web sites, discussion groups and so on-simply to get consumers the information they crave. If you don’t retain anything else in this article, retain this: the information you provide to prospective and current consumers will be the information they digest, mold and deliver to other prospects. Therefore, be thorough and interesting and maintain the brand position throughout the communication.

If only Tank played left guard

Tank would have made a fabulous left guard because linebackers would bounce off of him. Similarly, the funny thing about mediating word of mouth is that the tools already exist, they’re just being misused. Advertising gets a chance to arouse interest and intrigue and provide valued knowledge; however, many marketers see it as a chance to boast, wax philosophical or simply provide the needed time for viewers go to the bathroom and not miss anything important. When telling stories, many marketers seem to prefer books with few words and more pictures. Even worse, the pictures are all cheesy product glamour shots and the words might as well be left off the page. They’re that useful.

I urge you to stop by your local REI and go over to the climbing department. Get a catalogue for Petzl climbing harnesses and see what I am talking about. If you are in Atlanta, it’s on the Clairmont I-85 access road. If you get on I-85 north and take it a few miles to Pleasant Hill Road and go down around and down the hill, Shorty Howell Park is on your right. It’s just a few football and baseball fields with a lake. The park is named for the man who donated the land and could be seen picking up litter every night while we practiced. It’s the place where I nearly got beaten to death by 50 punk sophomores. It’s the place where I got a chiropractic adjustment on a rickety wooden bench. It’s the place where I was a 2nd string nose guard. That’s Shorty Howell Park my friends. Home of the Wildcats, me and the Tank.


Snowden Tatarski is a brand consultancy based in Athens, Georgia that focuses on the development and implementation of the whole brand experience. The agency offers marketing research, marketing strategies, advertising creative development, media strategy and planning, sales consultation and the production of advertising, sales collateral, broadcast and interactive systems and materials. Information online at www.sn-ta.com

Stairway to Heaven....Man.

One of my favorite SNL sketches is the one where Eddie Murphy claims to be Clarence, the fifth Beatle. To substantiate his claim, Clarence offers a tape of Beatles songs with an added sax track and the word “man” after “she loves you”, supposedly proving that the original song was “She Loves You, Man.” He then plays the track backwards and you hear Paul McCartney say “Hey George, lets kick Clarence out of the band and steal all his good ideas.”

Some say if you play “Stairway to Heaven” backwards you will get a special evil message, a situation which Robert Plant denies. However, Plant did have a horrid solo career with its pinnacle in the release of “Tall Cool One,” so anything he says is immediately suspect.

“Stairway to Heaven” was not the first song I learned on guitar. It was the second. Actually, I only knew the first few notes, but I could play them with unmatched precision. I could also play “Iron Man” with power chords and a particularly terrible rendition of Guns N’ Roses “Patience.” “Stairway” is one of those songs that have drifted upward to a stratosphere of music beyond reproach. It’s not cool to say you don’t like “Stairway to Heaven.” If you don’t like it, follow your mother’s advice and don’t say anything at all.

In everything lies a “Stairway to Heaven.” In everything, there are things you just don’t question, critique or try to add to. You would never question the ingredients of my Great-Uncle Carl’s Brunswick stew lest you will be shamed with a steamy pile of country insults that sound like compliments but are veiled jabs. To tell Carl that his Brunswick stew is missing something is, in essence, to recommend adding a saxophone part to “Stairway to Heaven.” The marketing equivalent of “Stairway to Heaven” is the four P’s, which are relentlessly beaten into the head of young marketing students until they are recited like the lyrics to “Whole Lotta Love.”

Product, Price, Place and Promotion have become houses of the holy, and while some contend that such structure is unfortunately what is and what should never be, that leaves strategists dazed and confused as they to reconcile today’s initiatives with yesterday’s constraints. I suggest that the communication breakdown is because a lack of flexibility has made a time tested system a real heartbreaker for contemporary marketers.

Before you take a look at the four P’s and ramble on, might I suggest that your time is going to come and you will tell me thank you if you simply do the unthinkable and add a saxophone to marketing’s “Stairway to Heaven.” Well that, and play it in reverse.


What is missing from the four P’s (the sax, part so to speak) is the customer experience. Too often, we marketers assume the customer experience without truly delving into a customer’s interaction with a product or service. As product commoditize, we can no longer expect customers to adapt to a speculative experience. I know in suggesting the customer experience should be added to the four P’s that I’m messing with the way things have always been done. I know I’m adding a sax part to a classic, but it just plain sounds better.

Play the “Stairway to Heaven” of marketing in reverse and you’ll get a much better result. Here’s the first note.

1) Customer experience.

How will the customer interact with the product and message on practical and emotional levels? Is the design such that customers feel the desire to accessorize with it? Is there an essence of trust about the product, and if not, can we add it?

The customer experience is the realm in which products and service now find themselves competing. You can have two products with nearly identical attributes, but the one which by design, promotion or essence leans more towards creating a more succinct and desirable experience for the customer will win every time.

2) Promotion.

Sure. I can hear your thoughts from where I’m sitting. I am a consultant concerned with how to adequately promote things; therefore, I’m moving promotion to a top spot.

Untrue.

It seems that products are often proposed without the slightest hint of how they can or will be promoted for sale. That’s dumb. Honestly, a company should know how a product will be communicated and received by consumer far before the design is finished. And no, this is not an R&D thing. If the marketing department faces the daily task of connecting with consumers, then the marketing department should be able to impart some of that consumer and promotional insight into the product before it goes to production.

3) Place

The shelves are getting crowded, and unless there is a super-super-store format around the corner, I suggest not holding your breath for a door-busting miracle. Why would any company consider developing a product without having a clear channel of how to get it to customers? It seems that many companies are content to develop something new and find distribution after the fact. As distributing channels get choked with the hordes of products available these days, the successful products of the future will appreciate not only what they give to consumers but how they give it to consumers.

4) Price

I do not want to give the impression that pricing strategy is not important. It is. It’s not that I believe pricing strategy is not a strategy, I just don’t believe it is an entire strategy. Yet every holiday season the airwaves are full of door busters, one day sales and special secret items sales. In the end customers with zero brand loyalty are attracted to specials from which waning profitability turns “black Friday” into “deep in the red Friday.”

Instead of price, we need to think about value. How are we creating value for the consumer and how does the value relate to the cost? We can slash prices or raise value. I’m going with value.

5) Product.

After we ask question about what the experience is that consumers want and we provide; after we think deeply about what attributes a product should have to create promotion which is memorable and spurs action; after we spec the distribution channels to find a congruent way to get our product out there; after we get a solid price which accounts for all it will take to pull this off right…

We have the product.

So why should product people listen to marketing people? I’ll answer with a story.

While I was teaching a class, a group of bright young lads and lasses came to me with an amazing concept: an iPod for older people. The promotion was beautiful. Outlines of grannies on the now famous bright backgrounds. TV commercials with the heavy beat tracks replaced with big band, jazz and my favorite, audiobooks. This whole campaign was wrapped up in the concept of getting “your” iPod.

I put my giddiness aside and said, “This is awesome! What features will it have?”
“Features?” they asked. “It’s a regular iPod.”
“That’s stupid,” I nicely critiqued.

Wanting to play the old marketing song backwards does not mean listening to it all alone. What my young learners had not appreciated is that while the consumer pull might have existed, they should have been considering what R&D could have done to drive the message home. Marketing had identified the niche but it would be a product solution that would get things moving together. One student in the class came up to me with the answer: make the letters bigger on the screen.

No big deal. No fundamental reengineering. No overhaul. Just finding a way in the software to make the numbers and letters bigger so that we could back up the claim of “your” iPod.

Those young students had a lesson for me and all of us that day. We need to listen to the consumer and work backwards in developing seamless rollouts. We need to communicate between departments to make sure that we play from the same playbook and sing from the same songbook.

For many of us, the challenges and opportunities that today’s marketplace offers will give clear routes to our customers’ desires, and the prospect for success sounds pretty good. For those who refuse to look or listen another way, the prospect is bleak and, sadly, the song remains the same.


Snowden Tatarski is a brand consultancy based in Athens, Georgia that focuses on the development and implementation of the whole brand experience. The agency offers marketing research, marketing strategies, advertising creative development, media strategy and planning, sales consultation and the production of advertising, sales collateral, broadcast and interactive systems and materials. Information online at www.sn-ta.com

The twelve days of Christmas

It was a wonderful holiday. My most excellent wife and I took in a store’s worth of movies, a year’s worth of family (in close quarters) and an adequate amount (though it’s really never enough) of time reflecting on the year past and the year to come. We enjoyed a holiday in the Hamptons (which is to say Hampton Roads, Virginia), New Year’s Eve with my New Orleans-based protégé Meri and New Year’s Day with the Tatarski family. I count my blessings year round, but the holidays are a particularly great time with family and friends.

I’d love to go on about our trip to the Chrysler Museum or Chef Hugh Acheson’s Jedi-like sense in perfecting the cooking of foie gras for New Years eve, but this is a marketing newsletter so marketing we shall discuss. The holiday time is a great time to reflect on marketing. For many, it will begin a new year of efforts and budgets. For some it brings the hope that the past successes will be continued. For others it brings the hope that last year’s failures offer insight into how to do things correctly this go round. For all of us, we hope to be more efficient and effective in how we market what we must this upcoming year.

The holidays offer an added insight in marketing because it is the most wonderful time of the year to be bombarded with pleas for your business. There’s the one day sale and the doorbuster sale. There’s the two day secret sale item sale, the early preview secret doorbuster sale and the ever-elusive secret two day doorbuster sale with an early bird preview and a one day mystery coupon chaser. The marketing we get to see around the holidays can really make us take stock of our own efforts.

So it’s a new year. A chance to start fresh. You’ve got a spring in your step and a positive attitude. You bought whatever exercise equipment to help you keep that resolution (I got a Giant OC2 road bike). You have a new plan for how you’re going to lift those sales and cruise past that quota. Let me be the first to congratulate you in advance. But also, let me be a little bit of a grinch and offer a bit of advice: there are seemingly innocuous yet significant problems lurking out there that can derail even the best marketing team. Make it your resolution to steer clear of the little potholes when you plan this year’s marketing.

Now everybody, the things to look out for this year, in the key of C.

On the first day of Christmas my VP gave to me: Research which fails to accurately ascertain or report correct information.

Research is a funny thing with possibly unfunny results. Research which is very scientific (and suggested to be reliable) often tells nothing but then it costs an arm, leg and a forest to produce. Research which is more interpretive often uncovers the needed approaches and insights which can move a brand onto the right track. The trick is to get this kind of research interpreted the correct way, which is to say, objectively. Jim Nelems always says, “The true power of research is in the understanding of what you're are seeing, hearing and uncovering.” He is completely right. And don’t treat research like fruitcake and pretend to happily accept it only to let it gather dust next to the Perry Como Christmas album.

On the second day of Christmas my VP gave to me: An overall brand position poorly rooted for competition.

Remember that scene in Return of the Jedi where Luke thinks he is fighting Darth Vader in a cave, but it turns out he is really just fighting himself? I know a ton of brands making that same mistake. They aim at a ghost competitor and, had the competitor existed, they would have done a fine job competing against them. The result is restaurants trying to be all things to all people, cars built for no one, tequila meant to be mixed with cola and a slew of household and packaged products whose taglines should be “what were we thinking?”

Before you march out with that next idea, you better make sure the brand concept is rooted in reality.

On the third day of Christmas my VP gave to me: Strategies rooted in flawed tactics.

Line extension is the mistletoe of marketing: you think it’s cute to have around, then you find out it’s really a parasite. There’s a lot of mistletoe hanging on brands these days.

A better choice is to focus on doing what you do best. Get a scorpion concept. If you don’t know what a scorpion concept is, e-mail me and I’ll send you my book. It’s full of scorpions.

On the fourth day of Christmas my VP gave to me: Strategies disjointed in execution.

In the movie Drum Line, Denzel Washington has a simple but pointed command for his players: “One band, one sound.” Rarely are marketers held to such a standard. Advertising, sales, PR and customer service are all apparently playing different songs. They have one band (sort of) and a million different sounds. From the tuba section comes the pitch of value while sax is playing a conflicting tune about price-offs. Let’s not even talk about what’s coming from the clarinets. The point is marketing should have one powerful sound that harmonizes.

On the fifth day of Christmas my VP gave to me: Strategies wrongly translated into advertising.

If you were expecting golden rings you are at least part right. That is, of course, if you’re referring to marketers who incorrectly try to make a linkage between their brand and a sporting event, like perhaps the Olympics. And don’t get me wrong. I think the Olympics are awesome, but the attempts by marketers to squeeze the square peg of something like financial planning into the round hole of a TV spot featuring someone on the pommel horse are slightly cheesy. It’s not just sports. There are plenty of opportunities for the message to get lost between the product and the tube.

It is better to make a succinct case for your marketing strategy and not try to bring in outside confounds.

On the sixth day of Christmas my VP gave to me: An abrupt change in a good strategy.

Those of you who know me know I like to cook, and one of my favorite items to cook is stew. I make this one stew with wine-marinated chuck roast that is so good, you’ll want to slap the person sitting next to you in delight. The key to stew is to use the right ingredients and wait. If you taste it early and make an overcorrection you will screw it up.

How many marketing plans get cut off so the marketing team can chase a fringe market somewhere else? Good marketing is a calculated risk where, like stew, we use the ingredients that we know taste yummy and we trust that the things we learned from all the other cooking we’ve done will give us predictable results. Newsflash: many marketing efforts aren’t truly novel. Conventional wisdom is a great servant but a terrible master.

On the seventh day of Christmas my VP gave to me: All the expectation with half the budget.

Budgets adequate enough to only get halfway across the river leave you wet, hurt and angry. Nonetheless, I have met at least a few people who believe they can save their way to growth. Control all frivolous spending and fund important efforts adequately, remembering that you pay for what you get.

On the eighth day of Christmas my VP gave to me: The wrong media.

It doesn’t matter how good your message is if you put it on a trash can. Make your media choices congruent with the marketing goals and strategy. And don’t fear the specter of more media choices. The more media fractures, the more we can target particular groups and waste less of the budget on a mass audience. It’s funny how the people predicting the doomsday of fractured media are the people who make money helping you reach thousands who will never be prospects for your product or service.

On the ninth day of Christmas my VP gave to me: No second strategy after launch.

So you have a great plan to sow the seeds of desire in your customer’s heads? How are you going to harvest the wheat? I was once part of a campaign where we ran spots to build awareness but then did nothing to spur action. When I asked why, I was told that the other component of the campaign was cut from the budget. Why would you seek to make consumers aware but not ask for the sale?

You have got to have a plan to bring in the crop. I’m not saying you can’t tinker with the second part as you learn more about the initial effort’s success, but if your plan is simply waiting, then you really don’t have a plan.

On the tenth day of Christmas my VP gave to me: An inability to accurately diagnose and assess success and failure.

In the crazy world of marketing, strategies will continue to fail. But a failure does not have to be a complete, disastrous failure. We can learn so much about consumers and efforts from accurately evaluating a failure. A sure way not to accomplish this is to mess with the language and numbers to make a failure look like a success.

Take apart every effort. What worked? What didn’t? What assumptions and predictions did we make and how did they stand up?

On the eleventh day of Christmas my VP gave to me: 27 different people in charge.

We’ve all heard the goofy little quips like “a giraffe is a horse designed by committee.” Such jokes are funny to tell right before the meeting where everyone tears apart a marketing campaign and fills it up like a piñata full of misguided strategy, personal agenda, turf guarding and, in a very few marketing piñatas, revenge. It is nearly impossible to gang fight a marketing effort if no one is in charge. Years of business have taught us that those who lead a marketing coup may be hitching the train to the big time. The result is a leaderless team with strategies all trying to hit a grand slam when all that’s needed right now is a base hit.

The people element is deeply important in a marketing department. Organization and effectiveness starts with a clear command that praises teamwork and shared success.

On the twelfth day of Christmas my VP gave to me: A partridge in a pear tree.

I don’t even begin to know how to care for a partridge or a pear tree, let alone both at the same time. I have a hard enough time keeping my fake plants alive. The bigger point is what we get from the guys and gals in charge. Do they give us expectations paired with authority? Are they focused on the process of our efforts insomuch as they ignore the outcomes? Will we ask for constructive criticism and leadership and instead receive a bird and a houseplant? Let’s hope not.

Here’s a new years wish that your products sell, your consumers love you and success and accomplishment follow all the days of your life. Here’s to the hope that this year will bring prosperity and opportunity for all of you. It’s a new year and a new chance to prove why marketing makes businesses successful. Here’s to you and 2007. Hip, hip, hurray!


Snowden Tatarski is a brand consultancy based in Athens, Georgia that focuses on the development and implementation of the whole brand experience. The agency offers marketing research, marketing strategies, advertising creative development, media strategy and planning, sales consultation and the production of advertising, sales collateral, broadcast and interactive systems and materials. Information online at www.sn-ta.com

The Archnemesis

My wife had an archnemesis, a situation that I find neither normal nor disturbing. I guess I just assumed that archnemeses only existed in movies like The Karate Kid 1, 2 and 3 (but not 4). I never had an archnemesis - it was just different for boys. If you had a problem with someone, you just met up at the football practice field or Shorty Howell Park or the local gas station (one near us was even called The Fina Arena) and you pounded each others’ skulls in until you liked each other again. This very situation was graphically illustrated in The Karate Kid when Daniel delivers the final crane kick to the face to win the tournament at which time the opponent, a kid who has earlier beat Daniel unconscious, assaulted Daniel’s girlfriend and mowed Daniel down with a motorcycle, then comes up to Daniel, hands him the trophy and says, “This is for you.” Aesop’s moral is, there’s no contention a little kick to the face can’t correct. Chuck Norris must have made up with his enemies long ago.

But my wife is not Chuck Norris or Daniel Laruso, and I am thankful for that fact. However, her strife with her archnemesis, a girl who had jealously spread vicious rumors about her, was a protracted and vicious affair that no amount of front kicks to the maw would repair. I eagerly bring up the fact that Maura had an archnemesis when we are at social engagements, and the listeners seem eager to hear every detail about Maura’s sworn enemy. Better yet, Maura beams with pride when she talks about her archnemesis as if she is locked in some sort of medieval strife over taxation rights in the duchy.
My opinion: having an archnemesis keeps the drab days of high school more interesting.

While I didn’t have an archnemesis in high school or college, I certainly have had them in the working world. Sometimes they are coworkers. Sometimes they are the boss. Sometimes they competitors and sadly, sometimes they are my very clients themselves. I have to admit though, I must have missed out on the power of focused resentment in my early years. Now, my frustration, disenfranchisement, anger and any other negative feeling that the life of consulting conjures up can happily reside in the persona of whoever my archnemesis du jour may be. If only I had focused as such on the ninth grade wrestling team, I might have better than a 4th place medal. And yeah, I didn’t think they gave a medal for forth place either.

Today, I’ve learned to get mad and channel it. If we are pitching an account against another firm, then the inevitable outcome is that someone will win and someone will lose. And while your nemesis is not so directly responsible for your loss of market share, mind share and profit that you foam at the mouth at the mention of their name, the inevitable results (loss of bonus, decline in job security, addiction to Pepcid) should be enough to make you see red. It has always amazed me how some people insist on being so sedate and spineless at the idea of competition. It must have been that wave of politically correct gameplaying that swept the playgrounds of the late eighties. People were taught games where no one won or lost and basically you just ran around with a ball and had no real goal or objective. When I played seven-year-old soccer for the rainbows in Great Bridge, we went for the shins and throats because Chesapeake pizza always tastes better after you won. Not to mention, when you’ve had a chance to lose, you learn how to make losing into a winning strategy. The hurt and fear of losing can steel any effort into a hardened attack machine and often one learns more from a loss than a win.

I am going to go ahead and give the disclaimer now that I don’t advocate for people truly hating people. By the virtue of my faith and beliefs, I would not want nor condone you to take my words to mean you should go out and find someone to hate. However, hate in the spirit of lively competition is another thing altogether and that’s what I’m talking about when I say you should hate something. In such spirit, I hate the Norcross blue devils, The Florida Gators, all of my clients’ competitors and most consultants and ad agencies I’ve ever pitched against.


There are plenty of books on winning and competition out there and I really don’t want to microwave and serve their leftovers. What I can serve up is my few suggestions about competition and enemies in marketing that I have learned from rugged battles with a few of my most beloved archnemeses.

Don’t be a communist.

In Rocky 4, Ivan Drago was six-and-a-half feet of corded hate. Drago was just mean about everything except perhaps steroids and mother Russia. When Drago killed Apollo Creed, it was just unfocused hate against unfocused buffoonery. Enter Balboa. When Rocky sought to take down the towering socialist, he focused his hate right at Drago. He moved to a drafty farm house in what appeared to be Siberia. He ran in the snow while the KGB followed behind him. He carried the weight of the American ideal that struggle and hard work pay off in proportion. While Drago trained in his state of the art gym/planetarium, Rocky was lifting potato sacks full of rocks, chopping wood and drawing faces on Drago’s picture. When was the last time you did that? No, not ran from the KGB- I mean drew faces on a particularly despicable enemy? It’s liberating. Go do it right now.

The point is focus. Rocky knew who he wanted to beat and he focused that motivation in its highest concentration at the point of decision. That is an old, tried and true military concept and it deserves repeating. When battling an opponent, concentrate the build of your resources at the decision point. Drago hated everyone and everything sans the motherland. Rocky just hated Drago and perhaps Russia. Drago spread it out, Rocky concentrated and Rocky won.

Just because you don’t have an enemy doesn’t mean that someone else hasn’t pegged you as theirs.

There will always be a company that wants what you have. They want your clients and your reputation. They want your distribution and your R and D staff. They want your marketing and credibility with the public. You can pretend all you want, but the truth is somebody is gunning for you right now and it is better the flush them out in the open where you can get a clear shot.

I’m not saying to get all paranoid. Competition is healthy for a business and competitors can be as valuable as allies, if not more. So don’t cower in your office waiting on the attack. Instead, do a little recon and see who sniffs around your camp. You might do a little sniffing around their camp as well.

Then again the enemy may lie in more sinister places. Like in the interdepartmental feuds over what a company really does and how it should be communicated to the outside world. Or perhaps the stagnation of a brand that begins a momentous slide into shrinkage. I know the old saying says better the enemy you know than the one you don’t know but any of you who’ve taken on a home grown enemy probably agree you rather face Drago with your hands tied behind your back.

A true friend is a trusted enemy.

Friends in business are a curious phenomenon. I’m not talking Brian who goes with you to get a latte and scones. I’m talking about strategic partners and supposed allies who agree to relationships that essentially boils down to the equivalent commitment of they won’t let the dog poop in your yard if you have the same respect with your dog and their yard. In the Godfather, the Don said it: keep your enemies closer. At least an enemy is committed and has unwavering faithfulness to hating you. You can rely and even plan on your archnemesis’ disdain. All the while your supposed friends are working up other deals with other friends that all of a sudden propel them to stardom and you to the doldrums. Oops. Their bad!

Controlling your fate as it relates to your partners and competitors is an art that is tough to master. The easy place to start is to follow some rules the Don might have suggested. Be in no ones pocket. Be beholden to no one and make no excuses for protecting your businesses. Attack the weak before they get strong. Take every threat seriously. Don’t let your guard down for anyone whose fate is not inexplicably linked to the fate of the organization. Use the competitors’ force against them. And remember, while it is not war, it is how you make a living and provide for your family. If that is not worth a little fight once and a while, I’m not sure what is.

I wish Maura would just go ahead and kick that girl in the mouth.

It has been many years since Maura has seen her archnemesis, but it’s not the same with me. Some of my ardent critics are now close confidants. I have truly enjoyed the competition and now friendship of people I once pondered sending a poisonous snake to in the mail. Oh, don’t scoff. I know you’ve dreamed up worse.

So do it right now. Get a picture of the competition and hang it in the company bathroom for everyone to deface. Put it on a dart board or put a dialogue bubble coming from the mouth, unleashing a torrent of self-depreciating obscenities. If you don’t have an archnemesis, invent one. Take all that is despicable in your sector and embody it in a symbol of ugly stuffed animal or stupid trinket. Take your enemy and your disdain for them seriously.

Because it is better to have hated and won
Than to have not cared and lost anyway.


Snowden Tatarski is a marketing consultancy based in Athens, Georgia that focuses on the development and implementation strategic marketing plans. The company offers marketing research, marketing strategies, advertising development, media strategy and planning, sales consultation, trade communication strategies and the production of advertising, sales collateral, broadcast and interactive systems and materials. Information online at www.sn-ta.com

War. Huh. Good Gosh Yall.

The Cola War has been long and tiresome. There have been chemical weapons (Crystal Pepsi), dirty bombs (Christina Aguilera) and, most recently at Coke, a few insurgents. Yet still each year, a few inches are lost and a few are gained and to what end? The campaign’s budgets are only exceeded by the ambition to have a cola replace organized religion. You know, “catch that Pepsi spirit.”

North Korea isn’t the only one testing new weapons.

So now, Pepsi’s got them a newfangled brand idea and they intend to use it no matter what the UN says. The concept is “Feel the Pepsi” and its aim is to capture the volume and sheer awe of their 1970’s spirit catching effort. My recommendation: bring back epic “spokes dancer” Michael Jackson, incorporate “Taste of the New Generation” concepts and release a slightly modified campaign called “Feel the Youth”.

Doesn’t that just grab you?

This cola war has been studied for so long it’s gone flat. The once scenic market space of soda is now a wasteland of fads, slogans, once revolutionary media and aging pop stars. But the war has its lessons and we should take heed. The cola war cut the teeth of many a brand manager and the biggest lesson might be in a battle that has yet to happen.

Many, many years ago, the generals of Coca-Cola developed a secret weapon that would surely undo the enemy. This weapon was developed from years of frontline battles and its early tests assured a damaging blow to the competition. Coke loaded the weapon into its superior deployment system. They flew directly over the target and opened the bomb bay doors. The weapon released with a roar, plummeted towards the earth, hit the ground and failed to explode. Pepsi executives approached the weapon and admired its shining outer case proudly displaying “New Coke.”

What did Pepsi’s generals do with the unexploded ordinance? They hurled it over the line right into the Coke encampment after which it exploded with a ferocity not seen on aisle 12 in a long time. Coke’s bomb had exploded in their own face.

Every commander is expected to write a post mortem and Coke’s brass was no different. It seems every MBA class has something to say about New Coke. They spoke of the consumers who rebelled and favor the way Coke “used to be.” They reported the protest against changing a brand which people had used to define themselves. They acknowledged that it seemed that sabotage from the most loyal consumers was New Coke’s undoing. We now study that battle under the mantra of “the consumer is king”.

The dust has settled on aisle 12. Cola has become more of a cold war and the stockpiling of arms in other sectors seems to be the way of the foreseeable future. Both sides now have the “water bomb” and both sides have built alliances with major delivery systems. But what did Coke really learn? Will those who refuse to listen to history surely repeat it?

The next cola war: A prediction.

It will be a day not unlike today. People will gather in a conference room in one of the cola giant’s bunkers and amidst discussion the realization that things just aren’t what they used to be will appear. Awareness that distribution channels have changed, brand perception has shifted and consumers are just not who they used to be will creep over the room and set off terror within. The first strike will be a test.

One product will be repositioned. Perhaps steering Dr. Pepper in a nostalgia direction or maybe it’s a new way to “Do the Dew.” However it happens, the intention of the first strike is to make sure the weapons work after all those years in the silos. Will the bottlers march in step? With today’s fractured audience, can we really get the air power in the brief window available for a sweeping attack? And will Coke use the secret weapon?

The secret weapon was revealed in the New Coke attack. Consumers stood up and said they wanted a product that understood their heritage and roots. Consumers hoarded the Classic Coke as if their very identity was being stripped away and in a way, it was. There is real potency is the identification of heritage, enduring values and respect for a way of life that Coke seems more able to invoke than anyone or any brand.

The big lessons from the cola wars.

Get good intelligence.

There seems to be a tendency to want to sterilize and commoditize market intelligence. Coke’s focus groups said the product tasted better, so why the flop? Coke assumed that the consumer affinity was all about taste and ignored the more important intangible of persona and self identification. Perhaps more “feet on the street” intelligence would have warned against a disaster.

Keep your eyes in the boat.

Pepsi and Coke have barreled after some products with such focus that other opportunities get left unguarded. Tea, energy drinks and water are all sectors that Coke and Pepsi could have owned considering the pre-existing relationships and logistical systems. Concentration elsewhere have made Arizona, Red Bull and Evian little nuclear powers of their own.

3. Ideas are the most powerful weapon.

The reason that beverage sectors have developed in spite of the dominance of the two big kids is because of ideas. Ideas have changed the balance in many a war and marketers are wise to be on the lookout for good ideas. One need not be a maverick entrepreneur working in a garage to get great ideas. Procter & Gamble has an entire system dedicated to the best ideas money can buy. You don’t have as many successes as P&G and not recognize the power of great thinking.

Charge!!!!!

The big one is coming. Swelling arsenals and the stoking of quarterly stock expectations means it is inevitable that the two biggest kids in the lunchroom are going to have to fight. Pepsi has their posse called the new generation. They’ve got a standing army and every soldier in it feels the Pepsi. And then there’s Coke. They’re no youngster. They’ve got the muscle and the mean. They have the weapon. But will they use it?



Snowden Tatarski is a brand consultancy based in Athens, Georgia that focuses on the development and implementation of the whole brand experience. The agency offers marketing research, marketing strategies, advertising creative development, media strategy and planning, sales consultation and the production of advertising, sales collateral, broadcast and interactive systems and materials. Information online at www.sn-ta.com

You Don't Say

I am perhaps the only person I know who is very interested in body language but does not want to use it to win at Texas hold’em. Despite my enjoyment of the rare occasion playing gin rummy, hearts or go fish, the images of seedy characters wearing Hank Williams, Jr. sunglasses and accountant visors glued to a table have just never done it for me. I was the lone detractor when a restaurant client of mine seemed to like the idea of not selling food in favor of all the Texas hold’em you can eat. It is a lonely, lonely time where you’re the only one who can’t seem to get “in” on a fad.

While I share little interest in the game with Texas holding aficionados, I have yet to encounter one who doesn’t want to talk about body language. I imagine the ability to decode the feeling and intent of the guy across the table wearing the cowboy hat and blue blockers, especially when the kids colleges money is on the line, would be kind of handy. My interest in nonverbal communication came about a different way and perhaps the same way it does for many, which is, in the pursuit of the opposite sex. Being able to unmasked the façade and decode nonverbal cues meant knowing if she was interested, bored, excited or defensive. Years ago, I studied nonverbal cues and their indications in psychological testing and analysis and today I observe focus groups and interviews looking for upturned wrists, crossed arms and toothless smiles and hoping to reveal a hidden opinion, group dynamic or unconscious reaction.

An upturned wrist? It means surrender. Bearing the wrist puts you in disadvantageous position to attack. Plus, it’s hard to hide a sharp rock or a steak knife when your wrist is facing upward. Some even speculate that shaking hands originated from the fact that shaking another’s hand would prove the other person wasn’t holding a weapon. I’m not sure how that would help when it comes to their other hand which might be holding an axe or a mace. Crossed arms can be both a reassurance and protection. We naturally put our arms in front of ourselves when we feel attacked but we also tend to self hug when we need the feeling of reassurance. As for the toothless smile that my real estate agent gives, the truth behind the façade is pretty sinister and I’m not referring to her blinding outer-space whitened teeth. When we genuinely smile, our whole face moves: cheeks, eyes, lips, brow, etc. When we fake smile, we move our lips but little else save for a slight squint of the eyes...to focus…as in to focus on a subject for attack. A fake smile is less a prelude to a kiss and more of a prelude to a knuckle sandwich served sans mayo.

Of course, there are body signals that are less about survival and more about survival of the species, such as the hip tilt. The hip tilt is a little maneuver that women can do thanks to the special construction of their hips. The tilt is achieved when weight is shifted to one hip and the waist is tilted out, accentuating the curve of her midsection and highlighting that she is, in fact, not a man. The posture is all but irresistible to men and if you need and example, look in pretty much any magazine where women are used to get men’s attention.

And that brings up attention. Our body seems to want to tell the world whether or not we are interested. We point our bodies in the direction of what we want to have, see or attack. When we try to hide that we are pointing, we point anyway. A person trying to conceal that they are interested in someone or something will still point their toes in the direction of interest. Next time you are in a social situation, first guess where the interest lies then look at everyone’s toes. Yeah, we’re surprised too.

I recall with great humor a situation while on vacation at the beach with a group of friends and how one little attention-starved vixen set up her beach chair perpendicular to and directly in front of all the other girls’ husbands. And while none of the wives fully verbalized why this made them mad, they were mad enough that the vixen is lucky she didn’t get force fed a bottle of Coppertone. Sure, she was just laying out her chair. Wrong. She was putting herself in a space where all the men of the group were seemingly directing their attention at her whether they had intended to or not. It wasn’t a message to the men as much as it was a message (and not a very pleasant one) to the other women.


So, if brands function best when they develop a functioning persona, then could one reason that brands have body language that inadvertently makes communication to consumers? The answer that helps and hurts many companies despite their contrary efforts is a definite yes. Companies and their brands tend to function less like a single organism and more like a coral reef. In a single organism, a central nerve center controls the function of ancillary processes. In a coral reef, thousands of organisms work together for the promise of shared success and prosperity. Basically put, nobody has to do anything on the reef. They simply choose to. And the result is that each organism has, at least, the possibility to send out its own signals.

It might be simpler if a company was only known by the communication it purposefully circulates. Such an idea is unlikely and possibly undesirable. Truthfully, the multiple levels of communication a company gives off helps fill the numerous gaps that no corporate communication department could cover. Additionally, the shedding of information works as a check and balance system of corporate behavior. Think I’m kidding? Ask Nike or one of their many 14-year-old Malaysian retirees. Companies who try to control the natural flow of communications end up creating a vacuous void and the consumer response is to assume something is being hidden from view. Much of the American way of life is rooted in the belief that information, be it the writ of habeas corpus or the freedom of the press, is an entitlement to be withheld from no one.

So, where are your company’s toes pointing? Are you covering up vulnerabilities or do you need a collective self hug? Let’s do a little digging and see what’s going on behind the toothless smile.

Is that a hip tilt or do you really need to use the bathroom?

Companies often seem coy about wanting to attract customers. While the media stratosphere is full of the outgoing, the vast majority of marketers seem to fear that if the put themselves out there, they’ll get shot down.

Often I have to tell a company how attractive they are. I imagine the years of struggle and humility have made some companies shy about how irresistible they are to consumers. My advice, realistically embrace your attractiveness. Understand your strengths and trouble spots and don’t be afraid to cop to either.

Put your beach chair there in the middle and you might get your eyes clawed out.

The opposite of bashful is attention starved. The hype-filled late nineties taught us that hype and attention are as good as money in the bank, so long as it’s somebody else’s money in your bank. Now that the dust has settled, companies should use good judgment before plopping right down in the middle of the watchful eyes that have been jaded from all the unfulfilled eye candy of the dotcoms.

It is better to hone your strengths and beckon from afar- a technique that attracts the most brand-loyal first and then pulls the larger and perhaps less forgiving mass behind. This type of lure has far more credibility and therefore staying power with the market.

Take a look at where your toes are pointing.

The toes of a company are simply important. It says something to consumers about who you are, what you’re interested in, how sincere you are and if you can be trusted with their loyalty. So what are you communicating to them outside of that booming ad or bloated press release that’s sugar coated for instant absorption? What does your charitable giving say about you? What does your labor relations say about you? What does your board composition, CEO’s choice of speaking engagements, headquarters’ architecture, interior design, two-sided business card or any of the myriad of other things that form the sum communication say about you? It might be time to start asking those questions.


A man in high heels defeats the purpose.

The idea behind high heels is that it makes women walk in a way that clearly distinguishes them from men. And that is the whole attraction, distinguishing and discernment. But companies often don’t want to highlight differences. They would rather blend into the perceived safe noise and hope that fading into the background is some kind of strategy to get customers attention. If you want your company to have an enduring and desirable brand, it might be time to find a better way to mediate attraction.

I recommend your company primp a little. Find out the secret to your attractiveness and control those nonverbal cues so that you are sending the right message with the whole company body. At the same time, listen to customers nonverbal cues and find out their true feelings and intentions. Understand and control the attraction, and you won’t be surprised when you look down at your customers’ feet and they’re pointing right at you.

Snowden Tatarski is a marketing consultancy based in Athens, Georgia that focuses on the development and implementation strategic marketing plans. The company offers marketing research, marketing strategies, advertising development, media strategy and planning, sales consultation, trade communication strategies and the production of advertising, sales collateral, broadcast and interactive systems and materials. Information online at www.sn-ta.com