Author Archives: admin

HP Hip Plop

Posted on by

I would not want to be an HP employee this week. Well, actually I have not wanted to be one since Bill and Dave went to the big database in the sky. Last week, in rapid fire, HP said they will likely get out of the PC/laptop business (either through an Agilent-like spinoff or outright sale), killed their newborn webOS phone and slab business, and bought a relatively obscure software company for a huge premium. Their stock dropped about 30% and HP aficionados are still staring, jaws agape, in disbelief. Change is the only thing of permanence, and that applies doubly in the high tech business. Tech companies are the most agile known, and many have completely reinvented themselves when faced with undeniable market shifts. Others change because better opportunities exist. HP’s newest CEO, Leo the Lively, knows that software companies make significant margins (Oracle has an overall margin of … Continue reading →

Valuable Motives

Posted on by

“Buy our features,” said the German software company representative. “You vill like our features.” The way he said it sounded vaguely threatening. More to the point is that nobody buys features, his or yours. Not in B2C markets and not in B2B ones either. Advertising features, and to a large degree benefits, misses the mark in marketing communications. The reason is that features and benefits do not describe what drives a buyer’s intent. What motivates buyers, both logically and emotionally does. Hunger provides motivation. So do natural sexual impulses (which often leads to children, which then launches a thousand new motivations, including the desire to find very dark and quiet places in which to hide). A person’s motivations force them into seeking ways to achieve something (their expected outcome) or make them instantly aware of a possible solution when it is thrust under their noses. That last one only applies … Continue reading →

Pest Promotions

Posted on by

My web hosting company is a pest (I don’t want to out them, but let’s just say their name rhymes with Juan and Juan). In a few instances I consulted to a software company, which my web hosting service now resells. Thus, when my hosting company called one day to sell me on their “new and amazing” SaaS offering, I was amused.  I politely told the telesales monkey about my history with the system, and suggested that I was not going to be a customer. Then they called again … and again … and again. Eight times, and during each episode I asked with growing bluntness that they not disrupt my future days. They called this morning. Promotions, and the abjectly unpopular telesales routine, are essential to business. Making people aware of your products and value propositions are required as the first step in the marketing process. But like a … Continue reading →

Abstract Agent

Posted on by

God is a very abstract concept. Religion’s job is selling you on God. Metaphysical marketing, if you will. The marketing of abstracts and afterlives comes to mind as I slowly consume the pages of Mencken’s Treatise on the Gods. Regardless of your faith or lack thereof, we all agree that God is beyond human conception, which makes most religion a null program since its first job is to conceptualize God. Its second job is selling God, which in the realm of selling abstract products has been both the biggest project and one of the most successful. The success of religion comes from thousands of years of refined marketing, segmenting the market into a few million different sects, and following Seth Godin’s advice to agree with what people already think. Marketing new products into new markets is a bit like preaching to aborigines — they (the buyers/infidels) have no idea what … Continue reading →

Hulu Dancing

Posted on by

I’m glad I don’t watch feminine hygiene product commercials these days. Not that I ever enjoyed them. They just often plopped into television programs that might have had a significant female audience. In the desperation that is mass advertising, marketers know that a great deal of the ad spend is utter waste, such as when pitches for FDS appeared in my bachelor pad. The folks at Preparation-H realize that they sell to a specific demographic, and a growing minority at that. For every anxious prospect reached via a network television show, they are selling to twenty people who are suddenly slightly disgusted. Though you can reduce misspent budget by pouring through demographic viewership data, there is always a great deal of zero return in mass media. Thankfully mass media may be dying. Ubiquitous broadband allows for individualized content and advertising targeting. This is nothing new — that was the original … Continue reading →

Social Referral

Posted on by

Social media is an ad hoc referral system gone horribly right. Referrals are primarily a means to building business, brands and bucks. Ask my dentist (to whom I would gladly refer anybody). He is maniacal about soliciting his patients to make referrals, and he gets them.  He knows that patients move away or die (hopefully from old age and not botched dental surgery), so he is constantly refilling his demand chain for crowns, fillings and laser whitening. Referrals occur in every business, from your neighborhood dry cleaner to multinational technology companies. The larger the organization, the more it drifts from the quaint and personal sounding “referral” into the more Machiavellian sounding “buzz generation.”  Yet it is essentially the same thing. At either extreme we are asking, coaxing, bribing or begging people to talk to other people about our products, preferably in a positive manner. Which brings us to social media, … Continue reading →

Silicon Valley Bleeding

Posted on by

“Silicon Valley invented the technologies that will break apart Silicon Valley,” was the opinion of one Silicon Valley start-up founder in my cabal. Scott McNealy, co-founder of Sun Micro and the longest running ad lib comedy act in high-tech recently started a fresh round of discussions about the perpetually pending demise of Silicon Valley. He is heading a stealth start-up in Colorado, far from Stanford, Sand Hill Road and giant blimp hangers. This caught the attention of over seasoned Silicon Valley veterans, and apparently McNealy received a number of inquiries concerning the locale for his new technology empire.  In response he listed the “Top 10 Reasons it’s Better to do a Startup in Colorado than California.” Jerry Brown is spinning in his grave (What?  Not yet?  You’re kidding?  He looks older than Keith Richards’ grandfather!). Many things make Silicon Valley the incubator for new and world changing technology, but none … Continue reading →