Dave Saunders

Who really is looking out for you?

Dave Saunders — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:14:00 +0000

This ad ran in Time Magazine (June 30, 1947). That’s right, the headline reads DDT is Good for Me.

When I make jokes about this, I’ve actually had someone respond with “well yes, but the benefits of DDT in Africa can’t be argued with.”

Really?

I understand that Malaria is a horrible affliction, but if you’re going to keep score, then put everything up on the board. According to research published in the Journal Science, The Lancet and other peer-reviewed publications, those same people who are being “saved” by DDT are going to also have to deal with the following:

Disruption in semen quality, menstruation, gestational length, and duration of lactation
Premature births
Reduced birth rate
Diabetes
Neurological disorders
Asthma
Cancers
- Liver
- Pancreas
- Breast
- Blood
- Testis
- Lymphatic System

This doesn’t even begin to cover the effects on the rest of the ecosystem. You can look that up for yourself.

With Malaria resulting in over 800,000 annual deaths, it’s obviously a major issue and it needs serious attention. However, just because DDT is easy and cheap to manufacture in massive quantities does not automatically make it the right solution.

Once DDT is in the ecosystem, it runs its way through all forms of life. Studies indicate that its impact is felt by anything made of living cells.

That’s, like, everything, right?

Which leads us back to the DDT is Good for Me ad. Perhaps you’re looking at the copy of the ad and thinking how silly it is. Aren’t you lucky that no one is spraying DDT in your backyard? Think again. With the way this stuff moves through the ecosystem, any yard is your backyard.

If an ad ran like this today, would you simply accept what it said? Would you just assume that some government agency, with its highly-compensated staff, is running its own studies to make sure every line of such a series of claims is true?

Who really is looking out for you?

Technorati Tags: advertising, DDT, Time, Truth

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The Wrong Approach to Motivation is Ruining Your Results

Dave Saunders — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 18:47:43 +0000

What if everything you thought you knew about motivating yourself and others turned out to be wrong?

What if the old “carrot and stick” approach has been, time and time again, proven not to work?

What if those tried-and-untrue tactics were also proven to hinder results and decrease performance?

What if a Nobel Prize was awarded in economics to one of the people who has proven that old school management and motivation does not work in any creative thinking setting (which is anything outside of the most mundane of assembly lines)?

Well buckle up because according to the decades of research condensed into Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink, it’s all true.

In some remarkable tests, which can’t be satisfactorily digested here, carrot and stick incentives reduce creativity and productivity to a remarkable degree. In professional settings, this assumes an employee is being fairly compensated as a baseline. When an “incentive” is then applied to that person’s work the results are worse, regardless of the size of the incentive.

As many people are struggling to recover from tough times, the findings (and alternatives) found in this book should get serious consideration from everyone. It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to motivate yourself, start a business or hold one together. How you manage motivation (an oxymoron) is a critical element in your results.

Have you read this book? Do you agree? Disagree? Think Pink is a loonie? Sound off and leave a comment below.

Technorati Tags: Daniel Pink, Drive, motivation, Results

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Coke Gets a Clue

Dave Saunders — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 19:23:51 +0000

Once upon a time, companies registered domains for everything. One frozen food company registered a .com domain for every single product they sold. The idea back then seemed simple enough (relative to a limited understanding of the Internet): There were no useful search engines, so why not make it possible to type “[productname].com” into the web browser (typically that ugly POS known as Netscape) to pull it up?

Other companies used this approach to create a domain name for each advertising campaign.

The search engines came along and after a maturation process Google rammed their concept of “ site authority” down our throats. Having many domains weakens your online authority and that meant putting everything back on one domain’s site. Then you had to find a creative way of arranging all the information so search bots and (as an afterthought) people could find it.

I’m just glad there aren’t more wiki’s as a result.

Aside from search engine optimization woes, it’s just plain harder to get people to come to your site anymore. In case you didn’t get the memo, social media has the Internet by the nards and it’s not likely to let go any time soon.

So what’s a company like Coca-Cola to do?

If the people at Coke have any brains, they would abandon the old model of needing to own every web property with which they intended to market and get in the middle of the crowds of people who want what they have and like to talk about it too.

Apparently, the right people at Coca-Cola are in possession of said brains because that’s exactly what they’re doing.

Now maybe they didn’t come up with the idea to create their Facebook fan page first but at 4,134,849 fans and counting, they haven’t screwed it up either. Last time I checked, this fan page had just made news by crossing the 1 million fan mark. I don’t think that was too long ago so adding on another 3 million fans is pretty sweet.

What do people do on this page?

They talk about Coke, Coke Cookbooks, shirts, the museum, flavors, sweeteners, when the Stevia Coke is going to be available and when I CAN BUY IT HERE IN DC (hint hint) and all sorts of stuff I really doubt a marketing team would have ever come up with on their own.

In other words, Coca-Cola is connecting to people where they are (social media) and joining them in conversation.

I can’t wait to see how this shift impacts Coke in 2010. Some of the frontier is still unknown but if they can pull off authenticity and being “real” online, then anyone can.

How about you? Are you walking away from any of your marketing practices from the previous year and stepping into more social media/networking?

Technorati Tags: Branding, Business, Coca-Cola, Coke, Marketing, Social Media

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Is Feedback Killing Your Results?

Dave Saunders — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 18:34:51 +0000

For the last couple of weeks of December I listened to my collection of recordings from notorious grump and marketing master Jedi Dan Kennedy. During one discussion he mentioned how he never has “feedback forms” available for the audience. Why?

Because

a.) he doesn’t really care about their input. If people are buying, he’s doing things right.

b.) the audience isn’t qualified to give him relevant input. The comments usually say more about the person making the comments than the recipient.

This makes sense to me because “unqualified input” seems to come from everywhere. When I’m doing a copywriting project for a client, the English Major who insists that single sentence paragraphs “aren’t allowed” may be qualified to critique my next book but certainly knows nothing about writing ad copy.

While I love Toastmasters, the obligatory “uhm counter” role carried out by the grammarian is a minor surface issue. Watch the top paid talk show hosts and listen to how many times they say uhm. Now, do you want to tell me that you can’t be a successful speaker if you say uhm when you talk?

Now, if you dig deeper and build a person’s confidence as a speaker (which is what Toastmasters is great for), the uhm’s will magically reduce in frequency on their own and the remaining uhm’s don’t sound like they’re coming from a Nervous Nelly anymore.

That doesn’t mean I don’t listen to feedback. For example, I listen to what clients say they’re looking for. That tells me something about them and there’s often more in their feedback than what appears on the surface.

“Perception is reality” is only reality for the person with the perception. Speak in front of 100 people and ask for feedback, you will receive the results of 100 different perceptions.

So which reality is reality?

All of it and none of it.

Sonia Simone at Copyblogger posted about this topic as well.

How about you? Have you ever been derailed by feedback?

Technorati Tags: Branding, Dan Kennedy, Marketing

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Position Yourself for Online Success Through Personal Brand Positioning

Jean Klett — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:40:43 +0000

When it comes to marketing on the Internet, your brand is your identity. It lets potential clients know exactly who you are and what you and/or your business are all about, and can go a long way toward separating you from the rest of the crowded Internet pack. Your brand is what it is based on who you are, how you do business, and how you provide value. That is why personal brand positioning is so important if you are serious about making your presence known online. Without it your website will quickly get lost in the shuffle. Here are a few steps that can help position yourself for success on the Web.

First of all, to achieve successful personal brand positioning, you need to take a close look at who you really are by taking the time to explore things like your core values and your passions. This will help you find your special niche, which leads to the writing of your brand description. Next, take the time to define your dreams and put them into action. Develop what it is that you are really trying to accomplish with your brand. Without an end result to strive for, you will simply flounder along without direction. Then, it’s time to take action. Define your target market and pursue them with passion.

The next step in personal brand positioning is to figure out what may be stopping you. Maybe it is a fear of failure, or even a fear of success. Whatever it is, you need to identify it and find a way to overcome it, or you will simply crash and burn. Another step in brand success is to recruit a squad of brand “cheerleaders.” It is tough to make it in any business venture on your own, so you need a corps of folks around you who will keep your spirits up during the inevitable tough times. Next, you need to learn how to package your brand. Since appearance is everything when it comes to marketing, your package needs to communicate who you are with just a quick glance.

Another important step is to develop your own unique style. This will serve to differentiate yourself from your competitors, and give your brand a distinct online presence. Finally, it is time to roll your sleeves up and get to work. With patience, perseverance and a strong personal brand, Internet market success is within your grasp.

Author: Jean Klett
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Excise Tax

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What’s 2010 Look Like for Yahoo?

Dave Saunders — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 14:20:13 +0000

If Google is the Godzilla of the search market and Bing is Mechazilla, Yahoo! is Mothra: Kind of sad and dorky looking but people still know who he (it) is.

Of course, it wasn’t always that way. I remember when people talked about Google as being a “pipe dream” if founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin thought they had any chance of making a dent in Yahoo!’s market dominance.

Some dent.

As mentioned in this CNN Money report, Google and Bing are kicking Yahoo! to the curb. Google’s dominance in the search world is uncontested. Today, they own the game but the former lordship of Yahoo (and Netscape, and MySpace, and Friendster, etc.) should serve as a reminder that when it comes to playing King of the Hill on the Internet, the higher ground doesn’t really mean much.

Here comes Bing. Even though Bing is 3rd in search market share, it’s rapid growth is made only more worthy of note when you consider the money machine behind it. Microsoft can afford to play with Bing until they figure out the magic formula for search (if they haven’t already).

And money is something Yahoo! is no longer swimming in. This past week they “shutdown” to save money. While this WSJ post mentions that Adobe also shuts down at the end of the year, Adobe isn’t having cash problems.

Yahoo! apparently has some money for unique marketing ideas though. They paid the extra bag fees for passengers at SFO and SJO on Dec 23rd. Did everyone get Yahoo! luggage tags in exchange for having their bag fee paid?

But with Yahoo! ending their search engine arms race, what’s left?

I’m sure these guys aren’t going to give up without a fight, but what does the Yahoo! brand even mean anymore? Creating a brand out of thin air is one thing, but having the elements of your brand fall off and try to connect that brand to “new things” is sort of like opening a can of Coke to find a lemon-lime soda inside…or New Coke!

Ewwwwwwww

What do you think? Is Yahoo! still Yahoo! without search? What do they represent to you today? How is that different from a few years ago?

Technorati Tags: bing, Business, Google, Marketing, SEO, Social Media, Yahoo

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370 Passwords Twitter Won’t Let You Use, and No One Else Should Either

Dave Saunders — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 23:40:02 +0000

From the “huh, that’s kind of odd” category, Twitter has hard-coded 370 passwords that you may not use.

To check it out, simply visit the sign up page, view source and look for the source code that starts out like this…