Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Mao Tse Tung -- The Secret Capitalist

Earl Littman is awesome, but Mao, now there was a guy who understood the notion of marketing. In 8 words, he told you all you needed to know about how to successfully market a product in any market condition.

Ready. Drum roll. Mao. The Communist. The Capitalist.

"Don't worry about the fish. Change the ocean."

Detroit, are you listening?

Put that one together with this from Jay Chiat ...

"One of the good things that advertising can do is speed up the inevitable. It can make something good happen faster."

About those Hybrid cars, um, what's the average fuel cost savings in a year?

"Don't force people to do what they are not good at."

Norman Grulich delivered that number. And what could be more true? As a nation, we gravitate towards our known skills. We exercize our option to 'soar on our stengths'.

If you were to go Seth Godin on this thing ... wouldn't you say three Brand Enthusion rules to live by would be:

1. Change the playing field. Redefine the sales category. Go 'ziggy' on it.

2. Once you've redefined the market, tell your stakeholders.

3. Make it easy on the stakeholders to participate.

Here's one last bonus notion from Julian Koenig.

"All ads don't have to have the same intensity. Chewing gum ads don't have to read like they are selling blood plasma."

I know, everything is critically important to someone. But really, does $1.00 for a diet Coke at McDonald's, or a 'professional fry cook' at every KFC rise to the level of nuclear physics?

Got thoughts on who gets this right. Love to hear back from you, provided that you are not calling to invite me to the local chapter meeting of American's for Mao. Love him as an ad guy, but never dug the threads.

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