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