Monthly Archives: October 2011

Cult Brands

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A cult is a religion with no political power. Tom Wolfe Cults are good in the context of marketing, though not so much in real life. Religions are slightly more respectable, though each views the others as large cults. Yet the mechanics of cults, religions and matters of faith are informative in shaping a corporate brand. The difference between fanbois and followers is thin. In the early iPhone era, Apple customers were called a cult. Early adopters of iPhones were evangelical to the point of annoying. Regardless of personal motivation, iPhone fans fawned and proselytized the new portable computer. While their numbers were small and their zeal was large, the cult moniker was apropos. With relatively no market (political) power, the iPhone faithful were as bedeviling as Jehovah’s door knockers. Today, iEverything is a religion because the masses have adopted most, and sometimes all of the doctrine. Cults, religions and … Continue reading →

Intent Investors

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Angels and VCs meet a lot of liars. Not intentional liars, but overly optimistic and undereducated entrepreneurs who slap together business plans that are best filed under “fiction.” To egotistically quote from my own book on the art of propaganda “We accept a modicum of lying when the negative impact is limited.” Throwing away a few millions dollars of other people’s money is not “limited impact.” Hence, VCs and other investors have developed a large set of buncombe detectors. After all, they are in the risk business — risking money provided by other people on relatively long-shot bets in rapidly evolving markets. Investors have better odds in Vegas, but Sin City payoffs are not as big. Trying to cash-in on the next Google requires VCs to lose quite a few bets. But like the card shark who took you for your last nickel, they play the odds. Many start-ups come … Continue reading →

Simple Statements

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Dr. John, the King of New Orleans, sings a song that advises other musicians to “Keep That Music Simple.” The same concept applies to market messages. Rushing to tell every audience everything about your product leads to muddled messages. Your headline and opening blurbs have a 15 second shelf life before a reader’s attention wanders. Instantly connecting their motivations to your value proposition requires keeping the message simple. Oracle has a long history of being blunt in their marketing. Their magazine ads were once the most direct in the business, targeting techies and laying out Oracle’s performance superiority. Prospects instantly understood the value offered by Oracle and thus acquired a bias for the product. Instant believability based on instant cognition. For contrast sake, let us look at IBM’s top-line message for their DB2 database. It reads “DB2 for Linux, UNIX and Windows is optimized to deliver industry-leading performance across multiple … Continue reading →

Shifty Soil

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When the earth quakes, you either endure the trauma, relocate or eventually get swallowed by a gaping hole that appears beneath. Markets often have tectonic transmutations whereby old terra firma is relocated. This occurs with alarming frequency in technology markets — the upper rings of Hades are littered with tech companies that did not move quickly enough (you have long teeth if you remember names like Ashton-Tate and VisiCalc). Yet fault line spotting is a rare sport in high tech, and even catches change makers by surprise. One massive market plate is on the move, and television as we know it is about to disappear. Commodity broadband is making highly selective, on-demand video entertainment a reality. In the bad old days (last year) one consumed video entertainment by subscribing to ever expanding channel bundles packaged by cable and satellite companies.  The economics of broadcast television — where producers, networks, cable … Continue reading →