By Michael K. Redman, Principal & CEO, Half a Bubble Out

AUTHENTICITY… What is it?  Does it matter?  Does it matter in business? Yeah, I think so, but why does it matter and what exactly is it? And if marketing were to be more authentic what would THAT look like? We know we want it and sometimes we are fooled into believing that people are being authentic when they are not.  So what’s the big deal?

Authenticity is the currency of this generation even for growing our businesses.  The mantra seems to be either, “so what” or “don’t just tell me show me.”  We have been told for so long that, “it’s all in the message”, or “it’s just how you spin it”, or “people won’t buy your stuff if you don’t hook their emotions” etc. and they’re half right… and half wrong.  What happened was the business people, not just the marketing folks, forgot that people care about the authenticity of what is being offered “the steak” as much as they care about the experience “the sizzle.”  People want to have an experience but all too often over the past 40 years the promise of the sizzle fell far short of the steak. Because of this reality, some people want to throw out marketing and advertising altogether, but have you ever heard the term “Truth in Advertising?”

Think about it: Truth or Authenticity is important and marketing and advertising is neither honest nor dishonest by nature.  It is just a tool and the tool only does what its master tells it to do.  If we are to survive in business and for that matter in life we must figure out how to be authentic so our sizzle doesn’t outshine our steak.  We must also figure out what authenticity is.  What are its behaviors?  So answer the question for me, “What are people doing and saying when they are being authentic?”

The closer you stay to emotional authenticity and people, character authenticity, the less you can go wrong. That’s how I feel now, no matter what you’re doing.
-David O. Russell.

Please let me know your opinions… it’s important.

(But they’ve been mostly dead all day)

By Michael K. Redman, Principal & CEO, Half a Bubble Out

In today’s fragmented world and new global economy many employees and business owners say that Missions Statements don’t work or they are a thing of the past. They point to nameless companies who had their mission statement posted all over the place, but no one knew it and worse yet no one lived it, especially the management. If this was your only experience with Mission Statements then you’d be smart to turn the other way and leave the idea in the dust. BUT… if you are willing to take a few moments and consider the roots and true power of a Mission Statement you could be adding a powerful tool to your companies arsenal, not to mention giving your company a competitive advantage in the market place.

Think of it like this, a “Mission” is really the “WHY” of a company. In many companies today there is no substantial “WHY” for people to rally around and care about. If the Mission Statement is an outward expression of the WHY then it better mean something. Here is my take on the short history and evolution of Mission Statements.

Long ago, before the management movement of the 20^th century a few founders of companies started their companies because they saw a need, either because of something they experienced or something they were taught. These business leaders were moved internally to achieve something through their business, either to meet a personal desire or a need in the community. Henry Ford saw an opportunity to create cars that were consistently made. At the time there were over 200 auto manufacturers and every car that they made was custom built. No two were the same and that caused everything to take longer to make which made cars more expensive to own. Ford saw that standardization and an assembly line would make cars more easily available, more cost effective to buy and easier and less expensive to maintain. Eventually either Ford or one of his leaders who was good at managing the people and stuff figured it would make sense to write down the “WHY” of Mr. Ford and the “WHY” was called their mission statement. The first writing was probably more like a mission book but that was too hard to remember. Then someone, probably a writer who had few words and little patience said, “I think we can put this into just a few sentences.” Or at least that is what I imagine happened.

In companies like Ford and many others the “Mission” came out of the heart and passion of the leader. In companies that were growing you could go to those companies and see how the owner talked about “WHY” they did what they did and “WHY” it mattered. The “WHY” impacted how they did it, when they did it, and so-on.

What happened next was the copycat principal (My made-up term). When the mid 20^th century management movement came along it became very popular to analyze and implement the same tactics successful companies were using and one of them was the Mission Statement. They took it apart word by word and studied it until they felt there was nothing more to glean from this “amazing” tool. Soon it became the vogue thing to do. Books were written about it, lectures given and consultants consulted on it. Soon every major company had a version of this “Business Tool”. The Mission Statement became a thing of its own. It was what you wanted your employees to do but without the heart of the “WHY.” You see, the Mission Statement originally was a reflection of the founders and the “WHY” came from something that mattered. The companies that were succeeding weren’t succeeding because they had a Mission Statement. They were succeeding, in part, because they had an authentic “WHY” with depth that the company could rally around and that made sense to the day to day work that needed to get done. It was as if the copycat companies were looking at the Mission Statement, the two dimensional reflection, and thinking that was all they needed. They dissected it to pieces, but in the end they only had a dim reflection that had height and width but no depth. It was just a pale reflection of the “WHY.”

When we imitate great things it is a compliment, but we better make sure of two things before we do. The first is that we are imitating the original idea and not a pale reflection. The second is that when we are looking at something great to imitate we need to know that part of the greatness is hidden and that quality imitation requires time and patience.

So now when you hear yourself or someone you know say that a Mission Statement is useless, remember that if it’s based on the “WHY” of substance then it will never lose its value as a rallying cry to the people in a company.

That makes a true Mission Statement a pretty valuable thing in my book.

By Michael K. Redman, Principal & CEO, Half a Bubble Out

“Beware, this may mess with your sense of what is effective marketing and advertising!”

Good isn’t always the same as what works or as a friend of mine said to me recently, “Is it Good or do you just like it?” In my business, the business of marketing, we talk about this concept a lot.  Is a commercial “Good” or do we just like it?  Most people assume that if an advertisement is entertaining or has a  certain level of “Quality” then it must be effective; it must work.  It’s soooo NOT true!

It goes like this, “That commercial was great” or “It is so professional, not a small town commercial at all” or “It was so cool,” and the worst word of all, “Good.” What does Good, or all these other adjectives really mean?  Do we really know what we are saying is “good?”  My experience is that we don’t and it really doesn’t matter until we confuse the fact that “Good” does not always mean “It Works.”  This becomes really important in regards to marketing what you want people to remember.  Lets look quickly at three video ads that are “Good” but had no appreciable effect on the bottom line of the companies.

Three famous companies – Cadbury, Nissan and Taco Bell -  each created really entertaining commercials. In fact when I saw these  many years ago I was convinced they were brilliant.

The  Cadbury Commercial is with a gorilla sitting at a drum set playing to Phil Collins’ song “In the Air Tonight.”  You can feel the passion oozing out of this gorilla and if you like the song at all you can be sure to find this one enthralling.

The Nissan Commercial was actually a major one within a larger campaign.  You may remember the Asian man with the little dog who showed up in all the commercials and this specific one was an animated spot with GI Joe, Barbie and Ken dolls.  I’m sure that someone was insisting that the old man and dog was a memory hook, guaranteed to make people remember Nissan.  If that didn’t do it the sheer uniqueness and comedy would.

The third is none other than the  “Yo Quiero Taco Bell” campaign with the famous Chihuahua.  Yes everyone loved them and talked about them but ….it didn’t work. Based on a July 19, 2000 article in the LA Times,http://lat.ms/mncxB. Over the coarse of the campaign the popularity of Chihuahuas grew, but Taco Bell profits dropped 6%. One major theory is that they focused on the dog and not the food. In a company like Taco Bell 6% is a big bummer and not good business.

Go ahead, watch them.  Be entertained and enjoy them for what they are – well crafted, well produced mini forms of “Good” that DID NOT WORK.  It’s true.  Cadbury continued its course into the toilet as far as value and tried to sell.  Taco Bell’s business didn’t increase at all from the use of the commercials and Nissan’s business actually decreased during this campaign.

When we are evaluating commercials in the future it is ok to call them “Good” but please remember the question my friend asked, “Is it good or do you just like it?”  For some people the answer is the difference between success and failure at the cash register.

As we work with leadership across a myriad of industries invariably we get the same question, “What is SEO?” My goal is to provide you with a brief overview of what SEO is, and how it can help your business.

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the process of making your site more easily found by increasing your ranking in search engines. More simply put; if you own a car company and I enter “car dealerships in Chico, CA” into a search engine like Google does your car company pop up as the first listing?

The main purpose of Google, or any search engine, is to provide us (their customers) the most relevant WebPages possible based on what we ask for when we type in a “search term”.  If we aren’t consistently happy with what we find we will go to another search engine to find the answer.  This is what happened when so many people left Yahoo and went to Google over 10 years ago.  To accomplish the amazing feat of trying to read our minds from a few words typed into a WebPage Google came up with a special scoring system.  They give the best scores to the WebPages that follow their rules and reward them by giving them the best place on the front page.

There are “over 200 SEO factors” that Google uses to rank websites in the Google search results. Statistical research tells us that when a potential customer puts in a search term on Google they will click the first link 42% of the time, the second link 12% of the time, and the third link about 9% of the time. That means if you are in the fourth position you are missing 63% of the potential traffic.

“90% of people never go past the first page of a Google search.”

So how does an organization optimize their site to increase their position in the rankings? It begins with proper planning. When building and maintaining a Website it is imperative that you plan and prepare to attract visitors. Without proper planning, preparation, and maintenance of your websites you may build the perfect site that never gets noticed. Ten years ago your website might be competing against 50,000-100,000, but today it’s competing against millions and millions of websites.

Understand that it takes time, diligence and patience, and you won’t see results overnight. A solid SEO strategy, in this day and age is one of your greatest assets to building an online presence. It will deliver more visitors to your site increasing sales of your product or service.

Wondering where to start? Give us a call to find out how we can help!